ABSTRACT
Entertainment unions significantly shape the business landscape, and agents and managers often exercise enormous business clout. During the depths of the Great Depression, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed two laws making it easier for workers to unionize – the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Made up of powerful film and television executives, representative group acts as a negotiating agent for all production companies. Studios need constant transfusions of Hollywood’s lifeblood, and agents are the people who can help make it happen. There are many different kinds of agents representing many different kinds of artists. Talent agents, for example, represent actors. Managers do many things that help clients get work, such as making introductions to potential employers and sending scripts to studio executives and producers. Managers can therefore help clients become employable, but generally speaking they may not solicit or procure work.
