#11 in a Series The Eastern Breeze Agreement Signed with Sound One by Martin Levenstein , Guild 2nd Vice President Sound Editorial In March, Sound One Corporation and the IATSE signed an agreement covering sound editors and assistants. Negotiated for the IATSE by Guild Executive Director Ron Kutak, the agreement is The Editors Guild now represents all post-production employees at Sound One, in both editorial & re-recording classifications. retroactive to February 5, 2001, and will expire December 31, 2004. It is a "fixed facility" agreement, meaning that editors and assistants who are considered employees of the facility will be covered by the agreement whether the projects they are working on are union or not. The agreement has provisions for both staff and freelancers, but it applies only to those persons actually working for Sound One, not to productions or individuals who are leasing facilities and equipment from them. Staff minimum weekly wages are comparable, on an hourly basis, to those of the West Coast IATSE Basic Agreement. Sound Editor/Supervising Sound Editor scale is $1,280/week and Assistant Sound Editor is $1,050/week, but this for five days and only 40 hours. The West Coast guarantee is for a 45-hour week, so Sound One editors will begin to earn overtime five hours sooner than their West Coast brethren. Pay raises of 3% are scheduled for both 2002 and 2003, with a 4% rise in 2004. Staff sound editorial employees are hired for a guaranteed period of 52 weeks. Each new employee must serve a three-month probationary period, during which time he or she may be terminated for any reason. After this period, if employees are laid off due to lack of work, they are to be rehired before any new employees (time laid off does not count towards the 52-week hiring guarantee). After 52 weeks are over and an employee has completed their current project, he or she may be terminated from staff for any reason, or hired again for another year. Sound One editorial will be covered under the IATSE health plan. For pension, they will be carried under the existing Sound One 401K plan. Freelance sound crew may be hired to complete a project already in house for periods of up to four consecutive weeks under the terms and conditions of this agreement, or for any period of time under the Independent Feature Contract. For freelancers, welfare and pension payments will always be made to the Local 700 (Eastern Region) plans. A copy of the editorial agreement is on file at both our East and West Coast offices. Members should call Business Representative Norman Gay if they have questions or would like to read it for themselves. Re-Recording Sound One has had an IATSE agreement for its re-recording personnel since 1996. It covers machine room/equipment room operators, film-to-tape transfer technicians, foley recording engineers, transfer engineers, ADR recording engineers and re-recording engineers. That deal, too, was negotiated by Ron Kutak, then executive director of Local 776. At that time, post-production re-recording was under the jurisdiction of Studio Mechanics Local 52, which represents production crafts such as location recordists, grips, gaffers, make-up artists and medical personnel. In 2000, Local 52 vacated the post-production re-recording jurisdiction and it was assigned to Local 700 by the IA. The 1996 agreement was renegotiated – it now has an expiration date of June 30, 2005. Many members have asked why the Sound One editorial agreement is with the IATSE and not with Local 700. When the re-recording agreement was negotiated in 1996, it was with the mutual understanding that if, in the future, Sound One wished to negotiate an agreement for editorial personnel, it would also be with the IA. As the Guild continues its efforts to organize fixed facilities in the Eastern Region, our effort is to do so under Local 700 agreements. The Bottom Line After years of effort, the Editors Guild now represents all post-production employees at Sound One. This is a significant victory and we are very excited about it. It’s especially important that we have this strong agreement in place as Sound One expands its New York operations. Eastern Region Pension Plan Increase The trustees of the Eastern Region Pension Plan have voted to increase the yearly pension credit rate by $5. Effective July 1, 2001, the rate will increase to $70 per year. This is roughly a 7.5% increase, which is the largest gain we’ve had in over five years. It applies to active participants who’ve had at least 250 hours of covered employment during the period from July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2001. In addition, present retirees receiving pensions during the year ending June 30, 2001 will receive an extra, or thirteenth, check shortly after the beginning of the fiscal year in July. Together, these changes mean significantly more money for retirees. We plan to run a detailed article explaining the Eastern Region pension plan in a future issue of the Guild Magazine. If you have questions call the Eastern Region office.   Marty Levenstein is a picture editor and the Guild 2nd Vice President, representing the Eastern Region. He can be reached via email   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine Vol. 22, No. 3 - July/August 2001   Guild Home | Magazine Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700