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THURSDAY AM UPDATE: The IATSE ballots are in the mail now. I am hearing that the package does include the 17-page Memorandum of Agreement. However, members tell me that the Local 600 website is claiming it will post info on the proposed IATSE/AMPTP Basic Agreement "as soon as we have access to it". Yet the Memorandum of Agreement has been available on the IA website since Monday morning. "We do not know how long the Locals have been sequestering it. As of midnight Wednesday the MOA has not appeared on the 600 website or been sent to the members," one ICG "Vote No" activist tells me. "Denying access to the MOA while sending out ballots on this most controversial contract in years, and preventing a more informed and detailed discussion and debate on the merits of a contract having enormous repercussions on each and every member and their families, is unconscionable -- and raises serious questions as to our leadership's integrity and fitness to serve."
WEDNESDAY PM: The ballot package for the proposed IATSE/AMPTP Basic Agreement is being mailed out this week for all 17 "Hollywood" locals with a return due date around March 18th. It will include this letter from IATSE President Matt Loeb who lies to the membership that "a vote against ratification is a vote to authorize a strike".
That elicited this response from the anti-contract forces inside the Hollywood locals like the 400hours.com website:
We've heard that The Current IA VP (VP Division Director of Motion Picture and Television Production, the arm of the IA that controls the BA Locals) has said that there will be no renegotiating the current contract proposal. He has said, in essence, that if the membership does not ratify this contract that he and The Current IA President will call a strike.
The leadership of the IA is using fear to coerce the members to ratify a deeply flawed contract proposal. We feel that refusing, in advance, to abide by the will of the membership (prior to the votes being counted) is absurd. It flies in the face of the most basic foundation of trade unionism: the vote of the membership, the will of the membership. A union is not some sort of corporation to be run by CEO's. The Current IA President and VP have a responsibility is to fulfill the will of the membership... regardless of their personal opinions. If they do not have the confidence that the contract will be ratified on its merits, they should be preparing a plan "B". It is wrong and possibly illegal to bully the membership into accepting a contract. We are deeply disappointed to say the least.
Here is the link to the IATSE/AMPTP Memo Of Agreement which opponents are calling "the worst concessionary contract" that the Hollywood locals have ever seen. As one activist in the International Cinematographers Guild emailed his IATSE Local 600 members: "So far as I'm concerned, the MOA gives away employment opportunities in New Media, guts our health plan, and gives no security to those who work on a day to day, or part-time, basis. This contract gives away every reason I can think of for belonging to a union. On top of that, it sews up 'jurisdiction' over the Internet which means that no group can create an alternative union that might fight for realistic wages and reasonable terms and conditions of employment."
Nervous leaders like Steven Poster, ICG Local 600's national president is telling members, "This is not a deal that I am celebrating. We all know what the downside is." That's a reference to the increase from 300 to 400 hours to qualify for health care takes place in August 2011 that will by IATSE's own estimates hurt as many as 15% of the membership. Poster claims that "we as a Guild will work relentlessly over the next 2 1/2 years to put in place programs and procedures to help every single member keep their coverage. We have already created a task force lead by Director of Photography John Lindley to work on this issue."
But the "Vote No" forces say that's not good enough and are advising members:
"The Producers have NEVER faced a rejected Hollywood Basic. Our leadership tells us it would be a crapshoot to reject this contract, but they have no problem asking us to bet on the crapshoot of the IA renegotiating this contract in three years. It is far better to bite the bullet now, and for ONCE tell the Producers: WE'RE MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE, than to swallow this poison pill of a contract and die a slow and humiliating death later."
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The New Media contract issues should be a bigger focus for all IATSE members. You might have your 300 or 400 hours to get your teeth cleaned every six months but you won’t be making enough on a “Web Episode” with no real guide lines on rates or staff requirements to make your house or rent payments.
New Media is the future. It should be made under the Basic Hollywood Agreement.
If you members don’t have the balls to reject this steamer, then you completely deserve whatever garbage producer’s are trying to shove up your butts.
for god’s sake, just say no.
The AMPTP sucks! They sucks the life-blood out of Hollywood.
(\o/)
Nikki thank for you continued reporting on this issue. Please keep it up.
And I hope that all members can read here, the Facebook site, or 400hours.com to see that anyone who votes in favor of this contract is voting himself, or herself, out of union protection in new media, voting themselves out of a share of future earnings, and possibly voting themselves out of their health care.
This contract, in conjunction with the contracts of the last twenty years, takes a gigantic step forward in dismantling our union and union protections. VOTE NO. VOTE “AGAINST RATIFICATION”.
Furthermore, now I hope all my brothers and sisters in IA can see how foolish it is to not support our sister guilds of WGA, DGA, and SAG. Only together do we have a chance of getting the multinational corporations that own these studios to give us what we deserve and are owed.
It’s not just SAG that says the contract is terrible. Now IATSE members are speaking up.
At least the IA membership is getting a chance to vote that contract down. Something that SAG members have not been allowed to do.
The IA leadership is pulling the same stunt as Aftra does by saying “if you vote No you are voting For a strike”. It’s not true and they are using fear tactics – shameful for a union that is supposed to protect its members.
IATSE and SAG should join forces and vote No and then maybe the studios will listen. SAG is not alone.
IATSE is not alone. IATSE-SAG Unite!
Vote the contract down, and SAG will be right behind you in 7 weeks or less. You will bring the town to a screeching halt, and the strike would not last long.
The companies need product. They can’t do anything without the crews!
The issue isn’t the 400 hours for me, thats working only 20 weeks every year. It’s the new media, job intermingling, no minimum staffing (Hi I’m the gaffer/key grip/best boys/lighting tech and hammer) and no residuals – which pay for health care, that are the problems for me.
One day, if not today, pilots will all be shot on video and passed around on flash drives – new media.
It’s time to
A. Vote no
B. Vote these guys out – though i don’t know anyone whose actually voted for them ever.
Willie Bioff and George Browne live!
For some unfathomable reason, when it comes to Hollywood the IATSE is anti-union. Over the past couple years, it has loudly condemned — in all available media — the labor tactics of the Writers and Screen Actors. It has trumpeted the virtues of sealing up a contract as early as possible. It has run a strong and relentless misinformation campaign about the contents of this very deal.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that the Hollywood unions have almost no say on the IATSE board. When it came to negotiating a new Broadway stage hand contract for favorite Local One, the IATSE fought like a tiger and won better provisions for the members. Why can’t it stand behind the health and work needs of the rank and file of Hollywood? This curious split of loyalty seems to have grown from seeds planted years ago by Al Capone’s henchman, Frank Nitti. This anti-Hollywood producer-friendly tree is still growing in fertile ground.
Voting members need to read the entire Memorandum of Agreement. Immediately.
Look at the newly surfaced health care numbers in the “contract”: PPO copays are up 20%. ER copays are up 100%. MPTF visits now have a new $5 copay. Hospital admission is now $100. Out of network payments are down 15%. Mail order drugs are mandatory. Drug copays are up $5. And there is now a coordination of benefits for drugs which will harm a spouse with an inferior health plan.
Regarding the interchangability clause for New Media crew members: Won’t there be a safety issue when a camera department member is asked to wire the set from the generator or build a scaffold? Especially if that person hasn’t been trained or doesn’t have experience as an electrician or a grip? One can easily envision the future: a four man do-it-all crew will become the New Media standard. This begs other important questions: Does the safety passport program even apply to New Media? Are there any protections for overly long days?
Hollywood crew members deserve better and have the ability to demand better. It is time to speak out.
I thought OUR union was suppose to be representing US, and not just a conduit for gas from the AMPTP.
This is the most disgusting Basic Agreement I have ever seen in my 33 years as a I.A. member. I am voting no. I encourage others to do the same.
Where is the outrage? How are IATSE members not marching the streets of Hollywood right now, if not protesting the AMPTP then at least protesting their own union. If this agreement is ratified, then the word “union” will have lost all meaning for below-the-line workers in the entertainment industry. If IATSE members do not stand up and fight this contract, they will deserve every roll back that comes in the future. Defeating contracts like this are the reason you are in a union.
Thank you for your courageous reporting of the FACTS about the dire situation for Labor in Hollywood.
Two things in particular are happening right now besides the fact that our own leadership is using a massive fear and disinformation-based campaign to convince the rank-and-file to ratify what has to be the worst proposed Hollywood Basic Agreement in history. They are more clearly than ever on the side of the AMPTP and not their own members.
One, the IA’s claim that this contract gives us jurisdiction over “New Media” and that there isn’t any work there yet, ignores the real story about this so-called “jurisdiction:” WE ALREADY HAVE IT. Our current contract stipulates that our jurisdiction is “motion pictures and still photographs produced for the Producer.” It doesn’t matter where or how they distribute our work — that is literally THEIR BUSINESS — they can project it digitally on the side of cereal boxes for all I care and it’s still our jurisdiction. This has nothing to do with the technical method of “New Media” distribution, period.
What is it then? It’s simply a way to get the unions to codify in their labor agreements a new Side Letter for a new definition of work. Why? To establish sub-standard wages and working conditions (NONE, in fact), and to keep every other labor union organization from coming in and claiming jurisdiction — PERIOD. In the IA’s case it’s designed specifically to keep NABET and IBEW from organizing “New Media” with better wages and working conditions than what the IA is selling on behalf of the AMPTP. Anyone that buys into “New Media” as a win is a sucker.
Two, as for the 33% increase in qualifying hours for Health benefits, no Task Force is going to be able to come up with 33% more work in a community already devastated by the Producers’ Runaway Production out-of-state, out-of-region, and out-of-country. As the Industry Experience Roster has been open for 20 years this year, “Hollywood” is effectively a union town — for practical purposes most production is already unionized under IATSE contracts. There just isn’t enough non-union work that if it were all organized tomorrow the estimated 15-17% of members expected to lose their health benefits with the increase to 400 hours would magically attain those 400 hours. “Task Force” as a solution is a myth. Anyone that buys into it is a sucker.
Any union that would willingly sell out 15% OR MORE of its members and their families from Health benefits does not deserve the support of those members.
VOTE NO! VOTE NO! VOTE NO!
For over 20 years these contracts have gotten worse and worse. This is the point where we finally have to say, “NO DEAL!”
And that embarrassing letter signed by the 15 BA’s urging us to accept this disaster should be considered their joint letters of resignation.
Spread the word to everyone you know TODAY.
Vote NO!
From a glossary of Collective Bargaining terms:
Recognition= A formal acknowledgment by an employer that a specific union has the right to represent his employees in a given bargaining unit.
From a glossary of IATSE terms:
Recognition= A formal acknowledgment by an employer that IATSE has the right to represent his employees in a given bargaining unit without formalized wage rates, terms and conditions or membership requirements.
Roster=Revenue Stream
Can we please get together and strike these fuckers into submission?
SAG AND AFTRA?
fuggedaboudit AMPTP
The IA president can’t just call a strike. The membership has to vote on that.
Or has something changed?
OK, where are the IATSE members now who are so vocal and comment on the SAG contract situation by telling SAG members to just shut up and sign the contract that the studios have offered, because they don’t want a strike?
Now when the same studios are offering your union a contract that you find objectionable and the threat of a strike is possible why aren’t you telling your union leadership to just shut up and sign the contract? Oh,yeah. It’s your contract now. You don’t care if other people get screwed over but you don’t want to get screwed yourself.
Take a look in the mirror. The enemy is you.
Nikki…Many thanks for posting the link to the IATSE/AMPTP Memorandum.
As “Working 600 DP” stated above, the “details” in the New Media Contract” are VERY disturbing. Here’s what I discovered by actually READING it.
Part 4. Productions Made for New Media
A. Recognition
The Producers recognize the IATSE as the EXCLUSIVE representatives of
employees..
D. Terms and Conditions of Employment on Original New Media Productions are FREELY negotiable between the Employee and the Producer…
(Comment: Wow, we individual filmmakers get to “deal” with “Producers”…alone, on a one-by-one basis. Guess we actually don’t need to BELONG to a UNION and pay DUES for THAT kind of a deal, eh??? Reminds me of my long ago, bad ol’, non-union days.)
E.Other provisions
(5) Staffing
It is expressly understood and agreed that there shall be NO STAFFING REQUIREMENTS on Productions made for New media and that there will be FULL INTERCHANGE of job functions among Employees, so that a single Employee may be required to perform the function of multiple job classifications covered here under.
(Comment: Cool…we ALL now get to be grips, electricians, camera operators, hair dressers, make-up and wardrobe people. Maybe even directors??? Sign me up!)
But it gets better…trust me.
F. Reuse of New Media Programs
(1) Reuse in New media
(a) The Producer shall have the right to use Original New media Production budgeted at $25,000 or less per minute on any new media platform WITHOUT LIMITATION as to time and WITHOUT PAYMENT of residuals.
(Comment: Hmmm…let’s see. An hour program @ $25,000 per minute=$1,500,000!!
Btw, the 25K p/min. is exclusive of “overhead” and other actual prod. costs…so guess what the “budgets will be???)
Then:
(c) If an Original New Media Production budgeted at more than $25,000 per minute…is released on a free-to-the-consumer, advertiser-supported platform…the Producer shall have a 26 WEEK period…without payments of residuals.
(Comment: Let’s see, the Producers will be getting advertising revenues from day one but won’t have to pay residuals until half a year later!! Again, way cool!)
And lastly, because the mind boggles when you actually READ the entire “Memorandum,” at the very end is an “Unpublished Side Letter Regarding New Media Exhibition, “the IATSE acknowledged that it considers new media exhibitors such as HULU.COM to be exhibitors, NOT distributors.
(Comment: So…no residuals from Hulu or any other “internet exhibitors?”
With all this and more included in our New Media Contract, one wonders when most EVERYTHING will be considered as such by the producers and we’ll all be working in a NON-UNION and RESIDUAL free “business.”
I can hardly wait for the above, and many more wonderful “terms” to come into force. Once again the IATSE seems to be selling it’s members down the river, because as we all know by now, repeat after me, “The purpose of the IA is to supply the Producers with a compliant workforce.” So, let’s all follow our “leaders” advice and vote for this POS!!!
Yeah right,
“Umberto the outraged”
I love IASTE, they’re all for calling a strike when it suits their purposes, but they bitched and moaned at the WGA last year and they cried like babies over the possibility and threat of a strike by SAG this year…
Assholes.
I have heard the ballots are pre-marked “YES” and all that’s left is to sign your name! (sarcasm alert)
Why on Gawd’s green earth would anyone need to read the agreement? Whatever happened to trust? This is Hollywood after all! We’re all friends here. (more sarcasm)
@ Calvin
“Furthermore, now I hope all my brothers and sisters in IA can see how foolish it is to not support our sister guilds of WGA, DGA, and SAG. Only together do we have a chance of getting the multinational corporations that own these studios to give us what we deserve and are owed.”
The WGA struck – and got nowhere. The DGA struck and got a deal that the WGA subsequently adopted – as did AFTRA.
SAG has been threatening a strike for months, and is on the verge of self-destruction – they’re giving producers every reason to stop shooting film and to shoot digital so they can write AFTRA contracts.
So who’s example should we in the IA follow? SAG members have already lost more in revenues since July than they could make in any new contract.
As far as a “No” vote being a vote for a strike – well what alternative are you considering??
The IA chose to negotiate last year when the economy was much stronger than it is now – so were we to ask the Producers to re-open negotiations, what do you think their response would be?? After they stopped laughing they’d say “Sure – we can’t afford the 3% increase anymore – oh and by the way, that $200m we were going to put into the MPIHP…Never Mind.”
Or would you prefer to continue working under the previous contract?
It’s not a great contract – but do you see any way short of closing down Hollywood indefinitely of getting a better one?
Vote Yes to ratify
John, you’re a pacifist… IN fact you remind me Neville Chamberlain… He achieved “peace in our time.” All he had to do was give away Czechoslavokia. And look how well that turned out.
If you don’t fight for what’s right, be prepared to get less and less and less…
SHAME ON YOU JOHN.
THIS CONTRACT MEANS HAVING TO WORK MORE HOURS DURING THE DAY TO GET TO THOSE 400 HOURS. OUR QUALITY OF LIFE AND OUR VERY LIVES ARE AT STATE HERE.
HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN BRENT’S RULE?
SHAME ON YOU JOHN, SHAME ON YOU.
On much of what you say, I couldn’t agree less. But for what little it’s worth, I couldn’t agree more with one of your statements.
Your rhetorical question of “It’s not a great contract – but do you see any way short of closing down Hollywood indefinitely of getting a better one?”
There isn’t, John. I know you know that. There’s a cliche in bargaining that applies especially to high stakes bargaining. I think the way “The Donald” put it was “there’s no good deal you cannot walk away from.” What that means is if you feel you “have” to take whatever is offered, and cannot walk away from the table (and yes, if it comes to strike, to do that too), then you WILL get your asses kicked. Guaranteed.
So if you and fellow IATSE members think that if you accept this deal, and the AMPTP won’t take that as a green light to bend you over *much* further next contract negotiation, you’re dreaming, bud. Believe me, don’t believe me. I don’t give a fuck. Just watch. To toss in another truism from another guy with bad hair, “you teach people how to treat you.” You suck it up this time, you’ll be paying for it for the rest of your career.
I hear that Los Angeles is on course for something like *3* major features shooting this year. I don’t believe that, or the source of ABC radio this morning, But as you know, it sure as hell isn’t a lot. If you aren’t willing to go from scarce work to *zero* work if that’s what it takes, you’re greenlighting LONG term career suicide for a short term cookie.
Take a nasty hit now, or take a nastier hit later, in the “gift that keeps on taking.” But IATSE members who think they’re just going to lay down and play dead this time and won’t pay for it the rest of your careers is as time proven wrong as victims of domestic violence getting hit in the face, then saying “but if I stand up for myself I’ll just make them really mad” because they don’t have the resolve to face harsh short term consequences is a time-proven real-world disaster.
Your livelihood, your income. I cannot say I give much of a fuck but for the FACT that any organized labor who bends over and just takes it trains the AMPTP that NASTY hard line bargaining is to be rewarded, and giving the guilds anything they want is just *stOoPid* and unecessary. Do whatever you want. I don’t get to vote on your shit offer of a contract. But personally, I will take ANY short term hit on the contract offers I do get to vote on, no matter how insanely harsh, to protect my long term income. And there we completely agree. If IATSE lacks the balls to face whatever short term consequences are thrown at it, nothing short of divine intervention is going to save you guys from taking another MUCH harder hit in your next contract negotiation after this one expires, and every single freakin’ one after that until you stop rewarding bad behavior by having the balls to say “enough is enough” and stand up for yourselves now, torpedoes be damned.
I’d say “good luck” but for the fact that luck plays about net zero into the results of high stakes bargaining. About all of recorded history backs up the statement whether it’s a one dollar negotiation or the potential redrawing or elimination of a country off the face of the map that “there’s no good deal you cannot walk away from.”
By the way, John, many years ago, I did face “The Donald” in a negotiation. We had a contract, then at the last minute when he (correctly) thought he had me over a barrel, he tried to fuck me and change the terms. The point is not “yay me.” Who the fuck cares? My point is merely that there are some rules of negoation that never change.
My boss was out of town, and I cordially told that prick that if he was not going to honor our deal, he could fuck himself. There was 100.00% chance that if he had stuck to his guns, and walked on the deal already negotiated, that I was going to be fired as I was committed as a Turkey on Thanksgiving. I didn’t *give* a flying fuck, because I cannot be a pussy and look at myself in the mirror to let myself bend me over that way. Frankly, I thought FOR SURE that since he wildly outgunned me, and he *had* put me over a barrel before attempting to be a dishonorable prick and pull out the rug, that I was going to get fired. I did not give a fuck. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some prick tag me in a negotiation and make me his bitch. So I started looking for another job while I don’t remember my words exactly to him, it was pretty much along the lines of “kiss my ass. a deal is a deal.”
Much to my surprise, he balked. He correctly believed I seriously WOULD walk if he continued to push, and promptly honored the deal. I didn’t get fired. And somewhere in my files I still have a copy of the check he personally signed. I keep it as a reminder of that bastard’s own cliche of deal making, which I don’t believe he published until years later. But I WAS willing to walk away from the deal, because my honor and my integrity is valued much higher than my concern that I cannot get an equally good job somewhere. I just don’t roll that way.
IATSE should roll whichever way it wants, and accept the consequences. But if you IATSE members think you *cannot* reject this deal and face WHATEVER relatively short term consequences will come, then there’s a historical guarantee that your smartest move will be pulling out your costco cards and buying jumbo packs of grease, because you’re going to need it for the rest of your careers.
There’s NO guarantee of what will happen if you have the resolve to walk, IF necessary. But what will happen over the rest of your careers if you don’t draw the line in the sand when you’ve had “enough” is a virtual guarantee, and it’s definitely very ugly.
Believe whatever the hell you want, but just watch.
@John
You’re echoing the approved IATSE-written lines here, that’s clear.
But let’s look at the truths behind these oft-repeated arguments:
The WGA didn’t “get nowhere” with their strike. Their deal is NOT the same as DGA’s when it comes to the terms regarding so-called “New Media”: they have stronger guarantees. And BOTH their deals are significantly different from the terms of this IATSE/AMPTP collusion contract. ONLY JUST NOW, as of February 26th, has the IATSE / AMPTP Memorandum Of Agreement (in which the actual terms of the contract are spelled out) become available – despite the fact that it was written February 4th and fully prepared by the 10th! (makes one wonder what’s been happening for 3 weeks, doesn’t it?) So until the terms of this “contract” can be analyzed, I urge all members NOT to believe the line that “our deal is the same as WGA’s and DGA’s”. Until the legalese can be sorted out, until you fully understand what we’re being asked to vote on, I urge you to wait to send your ballot in!
The IA chose to negotiate last year before boxoffice hit a record $1BILLION/MONTH during a national recession, so don’t tell us who should be laughing at the bargaining table. And in terms of the producers’ contributions to MPIPHP’s well-being: remember that the Plans are co-owned by the AMPTP, for the express purpose of maintaining a healthy, viable workforce.
You want to look at SAG’s short-term losses rather than see the much, much larger long-term losses that’d be caused by folding to the producers, losses that will last for the foreseeable future and will set the precedent for even more giveaways.
You want to blame SAG’s strong unionism, rather than see that the AMPTP has been playing AFTRA against SAG and is using this strategy for all it’s worth. The producers LOVE to see this factionalism! They’ve encouraged it over the years: between locals, between states, and within trades.
Rather than blaming AFTRA for agreeing to such weak terms, you want to blame SAG for the producers’ desire to shoot digital? Oh, THAT’s the reason for the digital shift, not because producers may think they can do everything on-the-cheap in digital!
THAT’s why AMPTP wants the “non-union” terms of IATSE’s so-called “New Media” clause!
You’ve just shown us why we should vote this contract down!
I have about a million words printed up on the Facebook site if you would like to read my response there. If you have a FB account and aren’t on that group friend request me and I’ll invite you.
Well, John, if that’s your real name, if you really think the IA was so prescient in 2008 as to forecast the economic disaster of 2009, why can’t the IA foresee the DISASTER in 2012 it is agreeing to in 2009?
And John, whatever you may think of the deals the DGA, WGA, and AFTRA settled for, they are way better than the deal the AMPTP is making its bitch, the IA, swallow.
And yes, John, it is far better to work under the current contract than the horrorshow the proposed contract represents.
Yeah, John, I’d rather keep working under the old contract than agree to increase the 300 hours to 400 hours a quarter necessary to get the six-month eligibility, because I’m going to be among the hard pressed to keep my medical insurance. And I’m sure the measly 3% they are offering will be eaten away by the 2.5 times rather than 2 times monthly co-pay on prescriptions that will become mandatory through the mail, let alone overwhelmed on those times you have to go on Cobra when you don’t make the hours. Makes me wonder if you even belong to the union or are just an outsider trying to force us into a bad contract.
The IA didn’t choose to negotiate when the economy was stronger. Tom Short chose to negotiate a year early as a final feather in his cap before retirement. I thought it very ominous that after he started negotiating, he decided to retire without finishing the negotiations rather than try to shove this contract down our throats. That should tell you something, if you indeed belong to this union.
I don’t want to strike, but I also never authorized the union leaders to make these kind of concessions and the only way we can be heard on that is to vote ‘no’.
If that means that we lose our pay raise (which I sincerely doubt will happen when you are talking 3%… what are they going to do, drop it to 2%?), we’d still be better off with keeping our grasp on 300 hours. Have you priced Cobra payments recently?
And you should think seriously about that, because even if you are working every day now, that can easily change, with new media and runaway production, but once you’ve given away the farm…
this contract sucks ass! why do you think Kutak and everyone else is trying to shove it down our throats and threatening us with lies about “a no vote is a vote to strike”??? They know it’s a piece of shit and that’s why they rushed the meetings with the membership before the MOA was made available…so they could dictate the terms to the membership and no one would be able to question it.
It’s total crap.
has anyone else noticed that union reps are increasing their presence at union facilities??? funny that they only come around at times like these!!!
A contract by law should be fair and equitable for all parties concerned, clearly this has not been the case for too many years.
When I first joined the union they stressed the fact that I could not bargain for any rate lower than the prevailing scale pay; why did my representatives take it upon themselves to negotiate for all of the lower rate contracts we are now working under? Currently my income is less than I was making in the nineteen eighties.
As a member of Studio Utilities Local 724 I better not see a Cameraman sweeping the stage or a electrician dead-striking a set. Local 724 is not part of IATSE.
Our union has done everything possible to help the AMPTP undermine those in the Camera Guild and divide the Camera Guild from the other Guilds. It’s sent out newsletters criticizing other unions (WGA, SAG) for not just rolling over and taking what the AMPTP served up. It’s blamed the WGA’s strike and not the AMPTP’s forcing of the strike for the current woes in the business. I’ve never once received any criticism of the egregious AMPTP from Local 600 leadership but I constantly get mailings criticizing anyone and everyone who dares stand up to them.
The most recent mailing sprinkled fear in with the overall pro-AMPTP propaganda. “We better agree to these rollbacks or they’ll take more away from us!” They send out a ballot without linking to the document even IATSE has posted that really spell out the ‘new media’ implications of this offer. They seem to have the resources to send out anti-SAG and anti-WGA propaganda. Why can’t they get this vital memorandum out to members?
What is the point of paying dues to a union that’s so willing to let the AMPTP use ‘new media’ to destroy whatever power that union had? It’s truly unbelievable.
Members are screwed whether they vote yes to this contract or no. At least a no vote will get us all a DIGNIFIED screwing!
Part 4. Productions Made for New Media
A. Recognition
The Producers recognize the IATSE as the EXCLUSIVE representatives of
employees..
D. Terms and Conditions of Employment on Original New Media Productions are FREELY negotiable between the Employee and the Producer…
Translation: All the IA gives a shit about is collecting money (dues and initiation fees) from its members. Period.
To Billy,
Out of all the comments left so far, my earlier one included, yours is the most concise and prescient. All of us working and non-working IATSE members continue to pay DUES to an organization which does not represent our best interests. (Kinda like “protection money” in Godfather 2.”) Vote NO.
Umberto
The problem is everyone wants to WORK-but there are NO jobs-
The Producers GREED has now CUT many jobs.
If they want us to get 400 hours then MAKE MORE JOBS-
Don’t shoot in another country. Don’t cut the crew back.
Allocate enough money in Post Production to hire a competent crew.
The Post Production Crew once had a crew of 15 is NOW reduced to 6.
The Camera Assistants and Sound Assistants are reduced to one person taking on a job that was a 3 person job-
If they want to insure we all have jobs then I don’t mind the 400 hours-
BUT there is NO WORK!! SO HOW DO WE GET THE HOURS?
We want to work to put food on the table and send our kids to college BUT the Hollywood Greed is slowly Killing the UNION.
This all leads down the road to NON UNION work-
Okay, now I’ve read this memo and it’s worse than I thought. Anything falling under this enormously broad definition of “new media” essentially leaves members working under NON-UNION CONDITIONS AND TERMS but PAYING DUES for the privilege.
Once more: working under NON-UNION CONDITIONS AND TERMS but PAYING DUES for the privilege.
PLEASE: Every member, take 25 minutes and READ the memorandum from the POV of someone who intends to use the “new media” definition to hire union crews for rates below anything you’ve ever seen. Read it from the POV of someone who will make demands of you that would once have had you screaming foul to your rep. It doesn’t take much imagination. Got buddies working non-union reality shows? Imagine you’re getting the same deal AND paying ICG dues.
Nikki, if there’s any public awareness of this stuff beyond the Guild and AMPTP leadership and a handful of wonky members, it will be because of you. The “trades” won’t touch on how bad this contract is. The MSM doesn’t care. I’d assumed, “the contract’s probably shitty but it’s not worth voting no over.” And I would have voted yes and assumed that until it was too late if you weren’t covering this.
I’d like to hear what Local 600 and IATSE leaders have to say about the changes this contract represents. So far as I know, they’ve taken a page from the Bush/Cheney book and just said, “No need for a lot of confusing INFORMATION, just TRUST US.”
It would be sad if IATSE rank and file voted yes because this contract seems like the least worst option. Maybe it is and that would be sad. But it would be tragic if the rank and file voted yes because they didn’t know what a yes vote was really giving up. “Old Media” is over. “New Media” is the future. And this contract gives away the future.
I especially like the part in the agreement that states that if new media starts to become profitable,”then the parties mutually recognize that future agreements should reflect that fact.”
Is this along the same lines as the HBO agreement that got so much better for us once HBO started making money?
The only reason that our union and the producers treat us with such contempt is that we let them. We have consistently voted to compromise our own working conditions contract after contract and it should come as no surprise that our own union should consider us stupid enough to accept this insultingly bad proposal just as we always have. At some point we must stand up for ourselves no matter how tough it might be in the short term because to not do so will be painful for the rest of our lives.
Vote NO