Indeed its a bad cultural 'work ethic' that persists - that started back in the early days of CGI when small self-owned outfits were prepared to put in the hours and then some, for the benefit of the company. For these 'independents' it was a reputation building process to gain enough heft to even be considered for taking on any farmed-out work from the 'in-house' facilities like Lucas' ILM/Pixar, Cameron's Digital Domain etc. A lot of water under the bridge since those early pioneering days - but unfortunately the bad 'work ethic' all too conveniently transferred to the 'corporate freelance' model. And once the 'benefits' of this way of hiring around a core of 'permanent' staff members - from the growing freelance market - was adopted it became the standard this last 20 years. Since then many a VFX crew member had to become nomadic shifting from jig to jig across the world. Some moved from movies and commercials production, onto games production and some the other way too down the years. CGI feature VFX started as a boutique business but became a heavily commoditised business. As long as there's a steady supply of graduate students from the various Polytechnics and Art schools eager to practice their craft - then the circus will continue, as no-one stays around long enough to build a Union. Some of us tried, back at the time of the Life of Pi lay-off scandal - but to no avail, as money and impetus ran out.