GETTING ORGANIZED
'Twas a Good Year for IA Locals
by Tris Carpenter
 Tris Carpenter |
Yeah, yeah…Auld Lang Syne and all that. Going into the New Year always seems to prod me to look at the past. It’s quite clear that 2007 was difficult in many ways––especially with regard to the larger industry issues (read: the WGA strike).
However, on the organizing front, the IATSE hit a high-water mark. According to officials at Local 80 (grips), who I know to be rather concerned with keeping track of such things, IATSE production Locals actively organized some 26 projects this year. That’s one every two weeks!
Virtually all of these efforts were carried out by the business agents working with their members. These non-union jobs were called into the local offices, and crew lists were forwarded around to the various business agents so that each department could get busy making the contacts necessary to build consensus.
Once it was clear that they were getting close to the level of support necessary, IA staffers would help coordinate everyone, and a time and place (that would provide maximum leverage) would be picked to make a stand for a contract. The IA would make a final collection of the Authorization Cards and notify the producer that the crew wanted an IA contract. If the request was refused, the crew members took a vote amongst themselves to walk off the job until a contract was signed.
This was successfully pulled off 26 times in 2007, the vast majority of them on low-budget feature films. At one point in June, there was a strike every four or five days as the Locals shut down one feature after another. Most producers caved in a few hours later and the crews were often back at work long before sunset.
Of course, the heavy lifting here was handled by the production locals; in some cases, the editorial positions weren’t even filled yet, or the editor was scheduled to start a few days after the strike. But we reaped the benefits nonetheless, because of the IATSE policy that requires all locals to work together in such efforts. That policy is designed to make sure that no Local gets left behind.
Is it more difficult that way? Sure, I bet the grips or cinematographers would organize far more shows if they only had to worry about themselves. Their memberships tend to be quite militant. Lucky for us, we all benefit from that tenacity and we owe them a debt of thanks for their hard work this year.
Also this past year we had a personnel change––or maybe inter-office shuffle is a better way to put it. Jennifer Madar, who was an Organizer in the Guild’s Los Angeles office for over two years, has transferred to the New York office to fill the Field Representative vacancy created when Annie Ballard (herself an organizing campaign alum from her days as an editor at New York Times Television) left the Guild to pursue work in Europe.
Those of you who worked with Jennifer know her to be a smart and tough organizer. Her skills and hard work will be sorely missed here in LA, but we are pleased to add all that extra organizing know-how to the complement in the New York office.
Tris Carpenter is the Guild's National Organizer.