A union for illustrators | An interview with Rebecca Blake

✊ A discussion on artists' labor unions, systemic solutions to AI, and the future of the creative industry

I’m really excited about this week’s letter, as it is the first interview I publish here. In the spirit of this newsletter, instead of interviewing illustrators about how they developed their style, or art directors about how to work with them, the interviews of On Looking will explore the systemic conditions that structure the production of visual culture.

I’m thrilled to send you this interview with Rebecca Blake, a New York-based graphic designer who at the time of the interview was the Advocacy Liaison at the Graphic Artist Guild and has been actively involved in organizing and improving creatives’ labor conditions for the past 30 years. My conversation with Rebecca was one of the most inspiring and insightful conversation I’ve had about the creative industry and I’m sure it’ll spark many conversations for you too. In such an individualized industry where most people never meet and isolation is rife, having people like her willing to spend time and energy organizing collective movements is of paramount importance.

We discussed the history of labor unions for freelance artists, the systemic solutions to the threat of generative AI and what a future where creative would be organized would look like. Note that Rebecca speaks here in her own name and not as a spokesperson of the Graphic Artist Guild.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself, your background, and how you became involved with the Graphic Artist Guild?

I'm a graphic designer and I've been on the board of the Graphic Artists Guild for about 30 years. I'm currently the Advocacy Liaison, which is the person who works on the advocacy issues. And I'm finally terming out at the end of October. I was also on the board and active with the International Council of Design for a number of years, which is a great organization. And I was just elected to the Board of ASCRL [American Society of Collective Rights Licensing]; they distribute international reprographic royalties to artists in the United States. I decided to become active with them because I'm very busy with the Guild working on generative AI and I'm not interested in stopping working on AI issues anytime soon. So, that's basically me. By the way, I’m speaking from my personal perspective here, not the Guild.

So, what led you to get involved into all this in the first place?

Oh I needed a job! I got involved with the Guild because I needed a job, and they had a job board. I was a very new baby designer; I had just gone to night school to learn design. I graduated from college intending to go to medical school, and I sort of fell in love with art and design. Because I hadn't gone through a four-year program, I needed community as well, and the Graphic Artists Guild just became my community. So, I originally joined just because I needed a job but then I stuck around because it was a great community.

And I feel like the Graphic Artists Guild is quite unique compared to maybe other associations that we're more used to like Society of Illustrators here in NY.

Yeah, because we come out of a labor union background. We are much more focused on real world issues. We don’t really focus on professionalism in the terms of awarding beautifully done work and things like that, because we our focus is on getting people to be paid. And I think that makes us much more sort of practical minded. Other associations like the Society of Illustrators and AIGA do such a great job with recognizing quality work, so we don't need to be active there. But we're the only graphic artists’ association that is a trade association that can, for example, lobby on Capitol Hill on specific legislation. I think that keeps us really grounded on what's feasible. What's really happening and what's the legal answer? What's the policy answer? How can we realistically address real-world issues?

Can you tell me more about like the origins of the Guild?

We started in 1967 as a labor union in Detroit. The Guild was formed because there was a group of illustrators in Detroit working for ad agencies that served the car industry who weren't getting paid properly. You know, they were being asked to work incredibly long hours, etc. They just had horrible work conditions. So they decided to make a Labor Action and because they were in Detroit, you know, the logical organization to form was a labor union.

And what was the legal landscape in the US at the time regarding freelancers’ ability to work and organize and how has it changed since?

From my understanding, labor laws have not changed dramatically, and they certainly haven't kept up with the gig economy. We have independent contractors who are basically treated as if they represent the same monopolistic concerns that large corporations are. When the Guild was founded, this was less of an issue because we had very strong labor unions back in the 60s. Really the labor movement in the United States really started losing steam in the 70s and really started being attacked quite a lot in the 80s¹. But we also have a public —particularly among conservatives— who has been trained to believe that labor unions were inherently corrupt and inherently inefficient and hurt business. So now in the United States, I'm hoping to see that there will be a resurgent in a belief in labor unions. But I don't know how it will work because such a large percentage of the population works as freelancers, and we do see a significant amount of abuse of freelance and gig workers. We see people who really meet all of the qualifications of a full-time employee who are treated as freelancers because the company saves money on health benefits, etc. But I'm going off on a tangent now [laugh].

No that’s great! I wonder if you can tell me more about the general landscapes of both unions and trade associations that kind of do work like the Graphic Artists Guild in the US and the specificities of the Guild?

So, we work with the Freelance Solidarity Project, we work with the Freelancers Union, we work with National Writers Union. The Guild was formed as a traditional union under our labor laws in the United States. As our workforce became more and more and more freelance, and as public perception of unions became more negative, we felt that being a labor union was less and less and less of a good fit. So, the Board of Directors put it to the membership to decide whether we wanted to stay as a union or to disaffiliate in 2015-2016. That passed, and we had to go through this very long process of voting in a new constitution and bylaws, and then another very long process to unwind our legal status as a union, to abide by IRS internal revenue service requirements. We had found that, because of the restrictions on labor unions, we couldn’t have, for example, flexible membership categories. As a labor union our members had to certify that they were earning over 50% of their income as an illustrator or designer. But we have a situation now, where there has been such an erosion in copyrights and in the ability of illustrators to earn a living, that not very many of them can actually say they earn over 50% of their income from illustration. Those people who earned less of their income as illustrators didn’t get to be full members of the Graphic Artists Guild because they didn’t meet that requirement. Also, as a labor union we were really restricted on how we could fundraise. Those are valid concerns for labor unions, since they want to make sure that they’re representing people who work in the labor force. But it didn’t work for us.

As a trade association, we can continue to lobby on Capitol Hill, which we absolutely want to do, staying true to the mission of supporting economic interests of graphic artists. But we can open up membership categories, we can engage in more flexible fundraising, and we can get engaged in flexible sponsorship opportunities. And it gives us an ability to be more responsive in a labor market that is predominantly freelance now. So that's the logic that went into deciding to become a trade association. I think the Guild, historically and even among new members, is very proud of our labor union background. If our members were regarded by the general public as people who actually work and not people who sit in little attics and create pretty pictures and sit around daydreaming all day, if there was an understanding of the fact that we actually do labor, we actually work, I think it would elevate the graphic arts. So that kind of orientation on “pay us already” is a really good basis to come from. Does that answer that question?

This is an amazing answer! It’s a beautiful story considering the history that you mentioned, the Graphic Artists Guild starting off from Detroit, from this automobile background, which is the quintessential industrial labor struggle environment. Today I think there's a lot of people who see the kind of work that we do as illustrators as the complete opposite of those form of “real” labor and that, like you said, we just make happy pictures and we’re just having a great time.

Yeah, people just think making art is like being in kindergarten – you know, everybody draws in kindergarten. And that language, that dismissiveness is kind of at the heart of what we're talking about now with generative AI.  You hear from the tech sector their dismissiveness of the concerns of artists. It's very arrogant, and it's based on a complete misunderstanding of what goes into being a working artist. It's not easy to be a working artist. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful work. but it’s not easy.

And what are the biggest challenges today to organize our profession?

Dysfunctional Congress. That's thing number one. In all honesty, the political climate in the United States is blocking a lot of really good discussions. So, because things have become so polarized and politicized in the United States, anything labor related, for example, gets a very knee jerk reaction from conservatives. It was really interesting lobbying on copyright². For copyright, we were able to get bipartisan support for some legislation. And the reason why is because to the conservatives, copyright is a property rights. To the liberals, copyright is a labor right. So it's flexible, it works across party lines. But we find with labor issues, it's much harder to get conservatives on board because they don't want to upset the applecart with major corporations. Now, major corporations are less and less and less a factor in the workforce; I think up to what a third of our workforce or something like that is now freelancers, and it's growing and growing. More and more people are, in fact, independent contractors, many working in creative industries, and we're getting to a tipping point where Congress is going to have to admit that they're just going to have to deal with it. I mean, we're desperate to get some good legislation regarding generative AI done and we've been told that nothing will even be considered until the after the next election, in a year and a half, which is just too late for artists.

I wanted to speak about what happened a few months ago in Quebec because I think it's it's quite interesting. The Quebec associations of writers (UNEQ) is a big association in the province, got granted by the government of Quebec the potential right to become a labor union or to function as such, for the first time for this kind of group. And when the association went to their members, and asked them to vote on this, the majority voted against it. Are you at all surprised by this?

Yeah. No, I mean, it's similar to an extent in the United States, in that there's not a real understanding of how the cards are stacked against us. We have in the U.S. this sort of cult of the individual, so we don't think collectively. And there's a real danger in that. Because certainly, when it comes to generative AI, there's going to have to be collective action in order to address the artists’ concerns. For example, one of the only ways that people are going to be paid for the use of their artworks in datasets is through collective licensing. But I know for a fact many artists hate the idea of collective licensing. Just hate it just as a matter of principle. But what are the alternatives – how else are artists going to be paid?

What would that entail for you? How do you picture the solution of collective licensing regarding AI?

So, it may very well require a legislative answer in the United States. If there were an organization set up to do collective licensing, they would basically have to get a letter from the Justice Department, saying that they're not engaging in antitrust activities. There are collective licensing organizations overseas, in countries in much of Europe, Asia, in Africa and South America but not in the United States, called reprographic royalty organizations. And they collect reprographic royalties, which they then disperse to creators³. These are royalties that are collected from the use of industries and technologies which facilitate copyright infringement.

Basically they’re very sensibly saying, if you're photocopying, chances are you're infringing on copyright. So, 0.3% of 1% of whatever fee you pay for that photocopy goes into a fund called a reprographic royalty. And that fund is eventually dispersed to creators like writers, illustrators and photographers. For the user, the tiny, tiny surcharge doesn't really hurt them. But the total amount of reprographic royalties ends up being a significant amount of money, and that is dispersed to creators. And so now there are billions of dollars in reprographic royalties that are disbursed to artists. We could implement a similar a model for licensing for using artworks in generative AI. That could work unless entire countries and regions put in text and data mining exceptions to copyrights. Because once they do that, it's basically saying yeah, you get to do whatever you want with creative works, even if you put people out of business with your technology. Collective rights are not quite a labor union issue, but it's similar in that the issue of licensing artworks is being addresses for the collective. It's sort of falls in that you know, working for the group to try to get some fairness.

Yeah. I think it's so interesting the nature of the copyright laws in the US and how they differ from what we have in Europe, for example, in the absence of moral rights for example, and that copyright is a property right rather than an authorship right.

Or work-for-hire, which doesn't exist in France, because France is civilized [laugh]. And again, it's because in the United States, we worship the great god, the market, and we have this —this is me speaking not the Guild— we have a culture of individualism. When you look the US’s copyright system, it is barely compliant with the Berne Convention⁴. And it's ironic, because, you know, we could do so much better. If you look at US labor history, we actually had a wonderful labor movement for decades, back when we had an actually thriving middle class. I hope that we do regain this idea that we can work together to get something better for everyone. And this dilemma with generative AI, the way there is such a collective infringement, may, in fact, make people start thinking in terms of “us” instead of in terms of “me”. I don't know, we'll see [laughs].

In your experience, what we see right now in the concerns around AI, if there are any echoes from past debates in the industry that you witnessed in the Guild?

There are past debates, which are often brought up to say generative AI is just like these the emergence of past technologies. I heard some saying to me initially ‘oh, it's just like a horse and the buggy’. And I think now there is an understanding that this is not a technology like any other. Certainly, when photography came about, you have some illustrators who lost work. But the difference is photography didn't wipe out illustration. Photography grew side by side with illustration. It led to a development of cross pollination where photography and illustration are combined into new media. This can also be true for generative AI. Done properly, generative AI can be used as a tool where the artist combines generative AI with original photographs, original artworks, etc. as a tool.

But the huge difference with AI is the volume of work that is created. In 150 years, about 15 billion photos were been taken, 15 billion photos in 150 years. In comparison, in just one year, over 150 billion AI images have been generated. It's 10 times the number of photos that have been taken since the emergence of photography. So the scale of the amount of works generated is an issue.. It's also the fact that 5 billion images were used to create this technology without any license or permission from the copyright holders. And I don't care what the tech sector, says those images should have been licensed – that is a market illustrators and photographers should be paid for the licensing of their works. It's the also the fact that most users of generative AI are not professional artists and they're filling the public space with imagery. And sure, there's a lot of really bad AI imagery out there. But that is still going to hurt a professional illustrator, particularly it's going to hurt them at the entry level for new illustrators just breaking into the industry.

Another huge issue is that AI image generators also permit work to be created in the unique style of living artists. So, when you do that, you wipe out an entire body of work by that artist. Because an illustrator will spend years if not decades, creating a very unique style While it is true illustrators imitate each other's styles, they don’t do it on the scale that AI image generators users do. For one thing, when illustrator imitates a style, it’s often done they're learning because students emulate people they admire. But invariably, if you're a professional illustrator, and you're producing professional work, you develop your own style. Your ego wants to be expressed, and you want to create your vision. And the second thing is even if you don't have that ego, even if you're perfectly happy imitating somebody’s style, there's a huge backlash from the professional community of illustrators, from your peers. It's considered unprofessional and unethical to copy someone’s style and pass it off as your own. So there's a tremendous amount of personal pressure put on you to develop your own style. That pressures doesn't exist with people using a image generator, and they happily produce work in the style of people they like. And the result is that even though they may not intend to replace an artist, the public space is flooded with images that look like that artist’s style, which means that style no longer has a uniqueness that is going to attract a client. All these reasons are why there is no technological development which is a good precursor analogy to AI.

AI image generators have caused us to even question, “what does human creativity mean? How do we protect the human creator, over the AI image generators?” If you use existing copyrighted work and you add your own original works, and you create a painting with new expressions and meaning, you’re creative a derivative artwork that fall under fair use. But when artists have previously made derivative works, they weren’t creating 100 images in one day, which you now can do with an AI image generator. That’s the scale that changes everything. Generative AI is going to cause a huge upheaval in labor markets and how we consider labor. And I think we're going to have to put a lot of guardrails in to protect labor markets.

Yeah, no, absolutely. To conclude the conversation, what would you say to a designer or an illustrator who doesn't think that joining an organization or union is relevant and that we should all be just individually dealing with our contracts, negotiating our rates, etc.

I will tell them that certainly joining an association is relevant. Illustrators’ wages have been completely stagnant for over 30 years, and it is impossible to get legislation passed to protect us, to stop companies and individuals from stealing our work, without working with other organizations. That designers and illustrators as individuals have no voice but designers collectively, illustrators collectively, the creative workforce collectively, have tremendous power. We don't utilize our power. One of the largest exports in the United States is intellectual property. We creators should be controlling our destiny. I would tell them; you're misguided if you think you can do it on your own.

What would like a strongly organized or unionized future creative industry look like in an ideal world?

It's my ideal world, I think there would be much stronger enforcement of copyrights. I think we would have a copyright registration system that worked for individual creators. Right now, for an individual, copyright registration is extremely expensive, whereas for a corporation, it's very affordable. We have a very unbalanced copyright system. I would love to see a thriving middle class in the United States, and I would love to see the majority of creative professionals in the middle of that thriving economy. I mean, I think average wages for writers is around $20K. It's ridiculous. The average wage for illustrators is between $40,000 and $75,000. But that 75,000$ represents very few illustrators, and those are only the ones that are answering the Department of Labor Bureau statistics.

You know, what I keep telling artists is that they’re going to produce work of great value, and they'll know that because people will keep stealing it. And what I want to see is illustrators being able to enforce their copyrights, being able to negotiate a contract, being able to secure rights for their heirs. I guess that's what I would see if there was a stronger organizational presence. If we could march into Congress and say we represent 75,000 artists nationwide, the conversation would change dramatically.

1. The events Rebecca alludes to is the crushed strike of the air traffic controllers in 1981, by Reagan. For a run down of the strike and its legacy, check out this article on Jacobin.

2. You can see a list of all the advocacy the Graphic Artist Guild has worked on here.

3. For those unfamiliar with reprographic royalties, here’s a short description. As a personal experience, these are amazing services. In Québec, every year I register the magazines and books I worked on and I get a check in the mail. Brilliant.

4. The Berne Convention is an international copyright treaty ratified by 181 countries. The USA has always had a complicated relationship with it because its copyright law and even after finally signing on 100 years later than other countries, it still doesn’t recognize key elements like moral rights (the non commercial rights of an author over their work). To read more about this, here’s an article on Plagiarism Today (yes).