The animation and VFX artists in California are unionized. For example, here's the Animation Guild [1] and the list of studios covered [2]. It's basically all the big names plus many of the small ones.
What the union couldn't do is prevent jobs from offshoring: the jobs moved to Vancouver, Montreal, and wherever else the tax credits were. I think it's still the case that the studios are getting like a 50% tax rebate on Canadians working in film in Vancouver. When your staff are "half price", that's hard to compete with.
What the union couldn't do is prevent jobs from offshoring: the jobs moved to Vancouver, Montreal, and wherever else the tax credits were. I think it's still the case that the studios are getting like a 50% tax rebate on Canadians working in film in Vancouver. When your staff are "half price", that's hard to compete with.
tl;dr: it's not a lack of unions.
[1] https://animationguild.org/
[2] https://animationguild.org/about-the-guild/studio-list/