The Legend of Zelda vs Union Rat

Do you remember playing “The Legend of Zelda”? Don’t lie! I know a fellow gamer, nerd, GAMER when I see one, think back - Nintendo circa 1986.  You played Link, the chief protagonist tasked with rescuing the Princess Zelda from Ganon, the Prince of Darkness.  If you haven’t played it or don’t have children, it spawned 18 editions and a few spin-offs selling well over 6.5 million copies on the first release alone.  So pay attention because the Princess is in trouble again, so run home to the attic or basement, find the box with your “Participant” trophy from soccer, worth-a-fortune someday baseball cards you are saving to send little Billy to college, copies of Playboy (those might actually be worth something someday as “editions with pictures”), and find the gold cartridge of Zelda because the evil UNION is battling the The Legend. 

ZELDA vs RAT 

I know what you are thinking - how can I turn The Legend of Zelda into a union story?  Well, it involves a large inflatable rat, but more on that in a moment.  The Legend of Zelda is so popular and so near and dear to those who played the games growing up that there is a show featuring a 90-piece orchestra and choir and game multimedia called The Legend of Zelda Symphony of the Goddesses Master Quest and its touring in North American and Europe. And it is selling out everywhere it goes, how cool is that? Ok, I’ve moved on to more important things like Call of Duty… but you don’t have to take my word for it. Did you see Stephen Colbert this past week? 

Oh yeah, the rat.  The large, inflatable union rat showed up in front of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York along with a handful of the Associated Musicians of Greater NY, Local 802. The American Federation of Musicians represents 220 locals in the U.S. and Canada and over 80,000 members.  So why the rat? To protest the use of non-union musicians.  The flyers they handed to patrons entering the show read “UNFAIR TO MUSICIANS! The producers of this show is paying significantly below musician’s area standards.” The flyer encouraged fans wearing Zelda shirts and humming Zelda tunes to contact the producer (even providing his cell phone number) as well as Nintendo. 

AN ARTISTIC CHOICE 

Concert promoter Massimo Gallota, stated in an interview with Kotaku, “It was so out of the blue, the performance had been announced for months but the union only contacted me last week!” He goes on to say that “I’m doing the whole tour in U.S. Europe and Canada and no problems so far until New York.  Scabby the Rat (see his Facebook page) and union VP John O’Connor accused Massimo of paying the musicians $100 less than the union would have gotten them along with benefits.  Massimo comes back with “the reason we used non-union musicians wasn’t due to costs, for us it was an artistic choice first.” (Oh no you didn’t, “an artistic choice first.”) Yes, he did say he chose non-union over union for artistic reasons - so deflate the rat and head on back to the union hall. 

Nintendo, who is releasing the 19th installment of Zelda in 2016 says “pffffffft." 

theSHORT 

Hasn’t John Connor been through enough with the Terminator movies, no wait - what - it’s John O’Connor not John Connor, this changes nothing… 

Turns out, the producer is under no obligation to hire union musicians for the non-union Barclays Center... something the union and their NLRB-approved ratshould know. To that point, the Legend of Zelda performance for the Stephen Colbert show, filmed earlier that same day, was performed with all union musicians. Massimo hopes to bring the show back to New York again, but without all the drama (or the rat). 

LogicDictates captures my sentiments exactly: “The SEIU is like that in San Francisco. You have to pay a fee when you get hired that’s a couple hundred dollars, plus monthly dues, and only get minimum wage in a lot of jobs.  The union isn’t helping anyone but themselves.”