The re-designed and upgraded Editors Guild website, under the supervision of Executive Administrator Lisa Dosch and Publications Director Tomm Carroll, is launched.

2003
With Local 600 moving out of the LA building, the Guild buys out their share and becomes the sole owner.

The IATSE transfers the Projectionist unit back to Local 695

The Editors purchases the second floor at 145 Hudson Street in New York.

2001
Paul Moore, the current Assistant Executive Director in the New York office, is hired.

The Guild’s Board approves the first Retirees Luncheon to be held in New York.

Post-production members of IATSE Local 695 are transferred to the Editors Guild. The group consists of Re-Recording Mixers, Maintenance Engineers, Recordists and Studio Projectionists. As they enter the Guild on New Year’s Day, 1998, they number 1,073.

On November 2, the two IA editorial locals (776 and 771) merge into one national Editors Guild, now Local 700. The merger is effective on November 2, 1998. Local 780, covering Illinois and Florida, cedes its editorial jurisdiction to the new national
Local. The sum total of the Editors Guild membership passes the 5,000 mark.

Jurisdiction of Digital Audio Workstations is awarded to the Editors Guild, IA President Tom Short announces.

The Guild adopts its new—and current—logo, designed by Wayne Fitzgerald.

Cathy Repola, the current Assistant Executive Director, joins the Guild staff in the Los Angeles office.

Ronald G. Kutak, the current Executive Director, begins serving the Guild.

Bea Dennis is elected the first woman president of the Guild.

The IATSE goes head-to-head with the National Association on Broadcasting and Engineering Technicians (NABET) in a successful campaign to organize videotape editors. Over 200 new members join the Guild.

A stormy strike vote at the Hollywood Palladium leads to Universal and Paramount breaking rank with the AMPTP, which in turn gives us our largest single pay increase, more than 50 percent over the next three and a half years.

Membership grows to 1,696 active members.

Jack Oxton, a Business Agent at that time, negotiates the historical first Pension and Welfare Agreements into the contracts and formulates the union’s Basic Agreement.

The “Plan,” the Motion Picture Health and Welfare Plan, begins operating. It has a minimum threshold of 165 required hours in the first six months of the year to qualify for health coverage.

Salaries are on the rise. On-call editors are drawing $305.72 each week. In just 12 years, with the growth of television work, our membership has nearly doubled.

A General membership Meeting is called for July 17, 1944 to discuss and vote on affiliation with the IATSE. Affiliation is approved and a new charter is awarded by IATSE President Richard Walsh on August 15, 1944. The Society of Motion Picture Film Editors becomes the Motion Picture Editors Guild, Local 776 of the IATSE.

The membership fees for joining Local 771 is $250 for Editors and
Assistant Editors, and $150 for Editing Room Apprentices.

Local 771 then achieves its first union contract with the newsreel companies.
It calls for a closed shop, 40-hour work week, paid vacations, time-and-a-half pay for overtime, a Serviceman’s Clause and a minimum wage scale with industry equity.

Society members serve in many branches of the military, including film units in the main Office of War Information in Washington, DC, Astoria Studios on Long Island, and in Hollywood at “Fort Roach,” also known as Hal Roach Studios. Warren Low, film editor, is first in command.

In the Society’s first contract talks, a 10 percent wage increase is won. Sound editors and music editors are made separate and distinct craft categories, each drawing $70 a week.