Details of the agreement will remain under wraps, Teamsters Local 399 business agent Steve Dayan said today, until the membership approves or rejects the deal. The Los Angeles branch of the union, which reps about 300 of the 500 or so casting directors and associates, will vote on September 15. No official word on when Local 817, the New York branch, will vote, but the same date is likely. The current three-year collective bargaining agreement expires September 30. The union’s new deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, achieved in just four sessions of negotiations, would be the third between the studios and casting directors, who organized under the Teamsters banner in 2005.


Will happily vote for whatever the Union recommends when we are all called together on September 15 to do so. The alliance of the past 6 years has been a blessing to us all, and I can’t imagine that each and every one of us doesn’t feel the same way.
Just hoping, however, that 2 Associates on each project will now be the norm as a result of this negotiation…one Office, one Technical. Too much to ask of one person to do all of the Office work (scheduling, checking avails, greeting actors upon their arrival, handling phones, etc.), as well as being expected to do ALL of the increasingly complex Technical demands that the Studios (both Film and TV) now require. We were trained as Casting Directors — not Editors, not IT whizzes, not PAs for the Producers and Execs who need their DVDs at home. We need Two Associates.
Ditto to “we’re not editors”. That is one of the biggest issues that has come up. Impossible to do it all with one person helping.
Don’t give your hopes up. I’m guessing the union negotiators will sugar-coat a crappy deal just like they did last time. I can’t imagine the AMPTP agreed to anything significant in just a week of negotiations. And minimum staffing? Ha! Never gonna happen. The only way to get the staff necessary for a project is for Casting Directors to turn down jobs with inadequate staffing. Very few Casting Directors will take that chance.
I’m prepared to vote no if the deal doesn’t bring us significantly closer to where we should have been 6 or even 3 years ago.
Well said, Breath!But what are the chances we all vote to turn it down until they do give us Two Associates? Slim to none, I bet……and the AMPTP is counting on our fear (of unemployment, or that the next CD will take the job if we turn it down on principle) to vote exactly as the Union tells us to.
As a struggling casting assistant who recently had to put the two+ year battle on hold due to lack of jobs, it gives me hope just to hear you say that. Let’s hope the powers that be agree.
For a change I hope it works out for you guys… No one should have to deal with all of that and I’m glad this was brought up.
“Will happily vote for whatever the Union recommends” Spoken Like a real sheep.
Mean while, The I.A. is negotiating Teamsters Local 399 contract again !!
Where is 399 questionnaire of what the Teamster member’s want?
Leo Reed is just going to blame the I.A. for a poor contact because Leo Reed (Smoking Crack) thinks he is the worlds Greatest negotiator, only because Leo Reed does not have to work under the contracts he signs.
Leo Reed salary is over $306.000.00 a year. LM2 Report 036-960