IATSE Announces 15 Hollywood Locals Have Ratified New Contract With AMPTP

COMMENTS (27)

• This is a very sad day for the thousands of members who are going to lose health care for themselves and there families. With the bank of hours not being increased and the need for 600 hours to requalify if you had a bad 6 month period and a low bank of hours reserve. This is going to really be a really tough time, career change is in the cards and this could not be better news for the producers who would be happy with using fresh blood straight from college and pay them P.A. wages.
  What crap union leadership we have. But I am sure not surprised since this is the same leadership that would throw elderly members to the curb when closing there nursing homes and acute care facilities just a few months ago.

  Sick just sickening.
  Hollywood is burning.

  Comment by David Johnson — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 12:33pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Perhaps now it will be seen that the only thing holding back about 260,000 people from having a job that would start right away is the damn people at sag…that figure of 260,000 is what’s estimated in Southern California. It’s time EVERYBODY who’s not sag started to put unrelenting pressure on those idiots to put their selfishness aside…I’m sick of the whining about “but how can we make a living under the proposed contract terms and what about our poor pensions?” HOW MUCH OF A LIVING ARE YOU MAKING BEING OUT OF WORK??? Please!

  Comment by LUIS — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 12:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• The results of the contract “compromise” are a strong argument for universal single-payer health care. When even Hollywood industries will not take responsibility for the health care of workers, it’s time to join the other first-world countries in providing government funded private health care for our people.

  Comment by Lee Frank — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 12:50pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I tend to agree with Lee Frank although I totally oppose government backed healthcare.
  The broader issue is once, if ever, the health issue is resolved then what new circumstance will be a factor of driving that stick further up the ass of our industries talent pool by the producers.
  Most likely by then it will be too late.

  Comment by Bryan — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 1:43pm PDT  Reply to this post

• A “strong” contract???!!! Can someone please explain to me how this is a strong contract? IATSE caved on almost every issue, bent over for the AMPTP at every corner and they call this a “strong” contract?

  I feel really badly for the many hard working IATSE members who are going to lose their medical coverage, get replaced by part time non-union workers and eventually become forced out of an industry they put their lives into.

  The good news is most of them won’t be around to have to stomach the next “strong” contract three years from now.

  Comment by Hank Yablonski — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 1:53pm PDT  Reply to this post

• LUIS

  Your anger is completely misplaced.

  Put pressure on the AMPTP.

  SAG is NOT on strike.

  Standing up against a 66% cut in pay is not selfish – it’s self preservation.

  If only the IA members could see past their noses.

  Comment by Tim McHugh — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 1:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

• To David Johnson: Well put, brother. I feel your pain. Very sorry. I’m saddened for every trade union that IATSE membership chose to accept the very first offer out of the gate, via formal vote.

  To “LUIS”: I’m making a living and surviving the de facto lockout off of my deferred compensation, which you call residuals. Just like many in SAG who make not a dime outside of acting work. This deferred pay is exactly the half of our income we’re fighting for and cannot survive without. I, like most people who make their living solely as actors have our call prices relegated to distant memory. Instead, we get “suck on this SAG scale rate, or we’ll just hire somebody else” upfront pay, and virtually all our pay (on feature film) through the deferred pay known as residuals. So although not necessarily in the following order, I cordially invite you to find your cap lock key and kiss my surviving-fine-due-to-deferred-pay ass, bitch.

  Comment by Sterling Wolfe — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 2:27pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I’m gonna save the trouble and carry a discussion from the most recent IATSE ratification board up here:

  I know I’ve been brash with a couple of arguments today, but there was a comment made by someone posting as ‘Disappointed 700′, and it’s an individual just like that obviously passionate editor that I have the most respect for. A large feeling I have is that this job drought we’re going through has been going on a for a long time, and as much as studio demagogues like Ben Silverman and Chernin and Iger spend much of their time earning bloated salaries and bonuses and walking around wearing huge red bullseyes, we have our state government to blame as much as anyone else. Second in line I’d say are our Union leaders. The studios, the business men? A comfortable third. I know it’s an unpopular stance to think we should be responsible for overseeing our own governance, whether in union or in state government, but that’s my, and only my opinion.

  Further, I definitely hear the complaints of individuals saying that the union-held meetings to cover the new contract were poorly executed. We should demand change. No question. But to imagine that our industry, the American film and television industry, is healthy and well is simply misguided. Today I’ve thrown some snide comments, but things get heated on these boards, and equating frustrations with our unions to the fight for Civil Rights movement or Czechoslovakia to the Nazis is just in poor taste.

  Disappointed700, I hear you. And I don’t think the complaints are unfounded. There’s just a faction on this website that thrives on labor disputes. And it’s tough to argue that when we’re working, we’re not happy and healthy. This job drought DOES need to end. I guess I’m kinda the opposite of that faction, I want to keep working as a means to recover.

  It’s not an easy black-and-white, but I, as someone NOT a member of IATSE, and happy with their decision. But I’m one [non-voting] voice. And content to be just that.

  Comment by Rabble, Rabble. — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 2:58pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Looking at my locals’ returns only about %50 percent voted. I see this as a sign that the other %50 percent weren’t getting 300 hours every six months as it is so the increase to 400 was not that big of a deal. Interesting indeed.

  New Media and the terms we have agreed to is a “Rabbit Hole” with no end for union members that have been in the IATSE for many years and who have known better contracts. I know…the world has changed and younger talent can and will work for cheaper than myself with 15 years experience and a lot of time behind camera. I don’t know yet if what I know has value in this new world.

  Good Luck to all IATSE members.

  Comment by arclight1@hotmail.com — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 3:07pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I voted no

  Not because of the hour requirement for healthcare though, but because of the job interchangeability and lack of true guidance on now media.

  The hours for qualifying were a horrible rallying cry.

  I’m sorry but if you can’t work 10 40 hour weeks in your chosen craft every 6 months, you are either not good enough at it or don’t have any connections. My wife, who now has to use her jobs HMO because of the change 2 contracts ago, needs to work 52 40 hour weeks a year to get/keep her benefits in her job. When I had a corporate job you needed to be employed full time for 6 months to get them, then when you changed jobs you didn’t keep them an extra 6 months or year. You left, your benefits left with you.

  What’s sickening to me is listening to folks who can afford to live on 800 hours of work a year cry that they arent getting free health care. Dont cry about how much this group or that group is making, you signed up knowing the way it works, deal with it. Career change should be good for a lot of people. I know in my local there is plenty of dead wood.

  It would appear the teet is dry, start feeding yourself.

  Comment by 728member — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 3:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Hey, how did IATSE 839 vote on this union wide contract?

  Oh yeah, 839 DOESN’T EVEN GET TO VOTE IN UNION WIDE ELECTIONS!

  How is that even legal? What a joke.

  Comment by iatse 839 — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 4:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

• -Luis….Get a clue

  “is the damn people at sag” IS NOT the reason you vote yes on this contract,

  It’s because you didn’t have the balls to vote no on it.

  “HOW MUCH OF A LIVING ARE YOU MAKING BEING OUT OF WORK???”

  Did they promise you work for selling out your union brothers and sisters?

  You are a poor excuse for a union member, but a good argument to legalize abortion.

  Comment by Gary Watts — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 4:22pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Lee Frank began a sentence with, “When even Hollywood industries will not take responsibility for the health care of workers,” and ended it with a call for government-provided medical insurance.

  But Hollywood industries are not responsible for the health care of their workers, Lee, nor is any other industry. It’s something that we as employees may negotiate for and even strike over, but employers have no inherent responsibility for our health other than to assure safe working conditions.

  We are, each of us, responsible for ourselves.

  (And make no mistake, after decades of having health care provided as part of my compensation package, I would strike in a minute over its being cut.)

  Comment by Writer Bob — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 4:38pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Thanks for the great coverage of all this Nikki… greatly appreciated. It was the only place I could ever get an overview of what was going on with this mess. RIP local 700… this is truly the middle of the end. I am out… why would anyone do these jobs?
  You are truly useless Ron Kutak and all you other dead sprockets at the editors guild. You belong in the dumpsters that they threw the moviolas in 10 years back.
  Thanks for NOTHING

  Comment by patty cake — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 9:01pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Somewhere Willie Bioff and George Browne are smiling.

  Comment by Santayana — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 9:10pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Have you heard the one about LA “Business Tax?” Come on LA and CA for that matter. You have got to be kidding me. I recently got an “assessment” for over 4 g’s. Can’t the city (and the whole state for that matter for supporting businesses and policies that try to drain money out of the poor) rob other people besides poor members of the working class? Give me a break. Nice tactic by the way. Don’t make it clear to people who try to start a business that they owe city taxes on top of federal taxes and on top of state taxes. Then wait until the deadline is over so that they can slap you with a penalty, charge you interest and blame you for being uninformed. Then, while you are at it, hire poor black people who are already pissed off with being shafted by the system to work at the City of LA Finance Office to make it even harder to talk to anyone who actually cares. Nice tactic LA. Nice tactic CA. Raise revenue by robbing your poor members of the working class. Hey CA, here’s an idea: why don’t you go after the billionaires and politicians who cheat the system by not paying taxes and who drain money out of ordinary people’s pockets instead of picking on your struggling working class citizens? What a novel idea. CA, I hope you get what is coming to you.

  Comment by Anonymous — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 11:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I really don’t understand the short-sighted view of so many TV crew members. How many of you have worked on a new media project? From the amount of voices I hear screaming, “we can’t afford not to work right now” I suspect it’s a lot fewer than those that will be in the near future. I had the (dis)pleasure of line producing a “webisode” series a few months ago. My series ended at an unusual time of the year so, to stay busy, I picked up an internet project. Keep in mind my experience detailed below was for a UNION project at a MAJOR studio.

  I was thoroughly shocked by the rates I was told I could pay the crew. The studio mandated that the general crew was to be paid $115/12hr day. Yes, minimum wage. Department heads were to be paid a maximum of $200/12hr day. You think it was only the regular rank and file that got screwed? Guess again. Series regulars: $500/ep, AFTRA day players: $150/day. DGA 1st AD: $200/day, 2nd AD: $165/day. Bottom line, there are no minimum rates for ANY positions (unless you consider state mandated minimum wage a rate). “But my crew is too experienced for these rates”, I said. The response was, “then find a crew that is young and hungry”. “You get what you pay for”, I said. Response, “If they want a shot at it if it goes to series (on a network) they will do it.” Guess what? Nearly my entire crew did it. Some as a favor, but mostly because our regular series will likely be cancelled. And what if these webisodes don’t get turned into a network series? I can rehire them all at minimum wage again when it gets picked up for another 13 webisodes. It is not an exaggeration when people complain we will soon be working for PA rates. Actually, PAs will take home slightly more since they earn mileage.

  An exec friend I spoke to at a competing studio told me that this is the new evolving business model for TV pilots. Why spend 3 million on a pilot when you can do a new media project for anywhere between $200k to $500k? Of course there will still be traditional pilots done every season, albeit fewer and fewer, but the studios are excited to be able to get nearly 10 for 1 for their money with new media. What better model for “creative” execs that can’t tell if they like an idea until they actually see it on film (er, digital files). The more spaghetti you throw at the wall the better chance something will stick. Not only are they spending less money for more shows, but even the failed ones are still content for their new media outlets. You know, the outlets that are too new to determine if they are profitable.

  The TV industry as we know it is all but gone and we have done nothing to protect ourselves for the change. But, hey, it’s not all doom and gloom. At least we’ll all keep earning hours for the new 400-hour minimum. Except you DGA, it will only take you over half a year to earn your medical at these rates.

  Fortunately, I picked up a traditional pilot that my crew and I are all praying gets picked up. Sadly, let me be the first to welcome you all to our future pilot seasons and careers. Oh that’s right, this will all be renegotiated 3 years from now. Phew, I guess we have nothing to worry about.

  Comment by experienced it — Friday March 20, 2009 @ 11:37pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I was thoroughly shocked by the rates I was told I could pay the crew. The studio mandated that the general crew was to be paid $115/12hr day. Yes, minimum wage.
  …
  Sadly, let me be the first to welcome you all to our future pilot seasons and careers. Oh that’s right, this will all be renegotiated 3 years from now. Phew, I guess we have nothing to worry about.

  Luckily for IA members the new contract does not specify any rates of pay. What this means is the minimum wage laws prevail. For now. The IA is the crew’s exclusive bargaining agent, and can easily waive said laws just like they have others (overtime, double time, meal penalties). When the next contract is “negotiated,” by the way, there will be little else for them to take…

  Comment by Billy — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 6:54am PDT  Reply to this post

• “then find a crew that is young and hungry”. This has been the low budget indie mantra for more than 20 years now. What’s the big surprise?

  Comment by Anonymous — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 10:40am PDT  Reply to this post

• “When the next contract is “negotiated,” by the way, there will be little else for them to take…”

  I suppose Rabble, Rabble is laughing all the way to the bank…

  Comment by Helen Hill — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 11:01am PDT  Reply to this post

• I think I just figured out the scheme behind tying the 400 hours together with New Media, and it came to me from reading this DHD comment by “experienced it:”

  The dilemma: how to get the experienced, qualified, proficient, capable crews to accept the slashing of their standard rates of pay and compensation, while the studios open up a whole new market called New Media? How to retain the talent base, and not lose the quality that the customers expect? How to avoid having a bunch of untrained, inexperienced, inefficient, unqualified kids from becoming the work force in place of all that talent with all those years of experience? How do you keep them and simultaneously destroy their standard of living?

  Answer: you increase the health insurance qualification by 33% at the same time as you lower the standard of living. This is why no other option for “saving” the health plan could be considered. This is why no two-tier system was considered, no premium payments, no increase in residual payments, nothing. If they did, they’d risk bringing in a low-skilled, inefficient work force who would be happy to have the chance to work in the industry, regardless of their skill level.

  Instead, increase the health qualification. This makes the mature, experienced, qualified, efficient work force into slaves to the 400 hours, so that THEY HAVE NO CHOICE but to take the New Media jobs FOR THE SAKE OF MAINTAINING THEIR HEALTH BENEFITS. It will drive the older, experienced work force into the gaping jaws of New Media. Nothing else would have accomplished it. The average mature worker would have otherwise balked at any New Media jobs. Now, they’ll simply “have to take it” so they can get their 400 hours, what with a family’s health to maintain.

  For this reason, the WGA strike was the perfect testing ground for this methodology. What a fertile ground the corporations found themselves standing on. During the WGA strike, Michael Goi, A.S.C., and his crew took a New Media job for ZERO WAGES, JUST TO GET THEIR HOURS. Wow, did they ever open up a “Brave New World.” By the way, the Line Producer on one show overheard us a few weeks ago discussing the contract ratification and the “strike threat,” and she said, “The studios LOVE a strike.” Now, I guess we know why, besides just cleaning house of most of their development deals. They got to see how far they could push the desperate work force.

  Thanks to suckers like Goi and his crew, the corporations knew that they could get the mature crews because they have to maintain their health benefits (obviously, the mature crew is older and has more health issues because of their age — and the toll that 20 and 30 and 40 years in the business has taken on their bodies).

  Face it, the alternative to simply putting in the New Media terms and having the mature crews tell them to “Fuck off!” because they were capable of getting their 300 hours elsewhere would be to have literally a bunch of eager kids to contend with, and they knew that the product itself would suffer. This was unacceptable. They had to have us, and they were determined to drive us down to minimum wage.

  Let’s see: ten days on a pilot at 12 hours per day, equals 120 hours. Only pays $1,150 for the ten days. Hmmm…well, I need those 120 hours, I guess I’ll take it for the $1,150 — AT LEAST I’LL GET MY HOURS. What’s the threat? We’ve got all these “young and hungry” kids READY to jump at the chance to work for us. Take it, or leave it. NO ONE’S FORCING YOU.

  This makes our union’s selling out of its members beyond despicable. They colluded with the AMPTP to drive their members into New Media, using 400 hours (and the alternative threat of a strike) as the stick. They must be looking at all that fresh meat under 30 years old as fertile soil to tend as their middle-aged members drop out between the 400 hours and the New Media.

  Thank you, “experienced it,” for pulling back the veil.

  Comment by George Barnes — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 2:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

• It’s called “Divide and Conquer….” Pit the experienced guys against the inexperienced kids then let them hash it out. When it’s all said and done, we, the studio heads, will still make our ‘mils and laugh all the way to the bank. Funny, I hear France has about 1 million of its citizens protesting in the streets against the big wigs clamping down on them.

  Comment by GoodTimes — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 7:44pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Fucking joke. Truly pathetic. And the worst part is that the people that did vote yes will be wishing they hadn’t in a few years. But, unfortunately by then it will be far too late. All those backing the IA and this joke of a contract have taken a gigantic step forward in dismantling our union and our union protections.

  Comment by Calvin Starnes — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 8:24pm PDT  Reply to this post

• This makes our union’s selling out of its members beyond despicable. They colluded with the AMPTP to drive their members into New Media, using 400 hours (and the alternative threat of a strike) as the stick.

  A very astute observation.

  But — regardless of the contract, it doesn’t have to be like this (although overall it surely will).

  There are at least two groups of IA members that stick together and maintain over-scale rates, such that a producer can not hire anyone competent for less. One is the sitcom microphone boom operators, and the other is the crews for conventional (as existed before “digital”) videotape. I’m not a boom guy, but were I to feel like getting back into tape work, my first call would be to check the rates, to be sure I wouldn’t be undercutting whatever they currently are. These videotape guys also, by consensus, periodically bump them up, and by more than a few dollars an hour.

  They must be looking at all that fresh meat under 30 years old as fertile soil to tend…

  What they see is yet another gold mine of sky high initiation fees (four times the weekly rate for the job classification under which one joins the union – I wonder how the hell that will work when the contract has no rates, heh!) and tons of quarterly dues – and, for some locals, a percentage of the members’ earnings, too.

  Comment by Billy — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 9:43pm PDT  Reply to this post

• So I don’t get the abject passivity I see every time someone discusses the new media pay and the 400 hour thing. We’re not slaves that just show up to work and accept whatever is offered but that’s what they would have you believe. You’re in an f-ing union. The fact is that scale pay will always be the going rate for most of the work any tech does.
  Yes there will be new media projects for stupid rates and a few of them will get done but they will not be the norm any more than they are now.
  No one is going to work at those rates for a sustained length of time. No major movie or TV show is going to be shot at those rates. No major actor is going to stand around on set while some newbie crew takes 6 hours to get a shot off and gets the wrong props in every take and drops stuff out of the green beds on his head (this is assuming of course they can even install green beds)and winds up getting his A-list face out of focus.
  A lot of the people lamenting this remind me of “end of days” types. They love “end of days” malarky more than life itself.
  We are experienced and relatively organized. We can get more organized and I happen to think we will.

  Comment by Work First — Saturday March 21, 2009 @ 9:50pm PDT  Reply to this post