by Tris Carpenter, National Organizer

In the last few years, the Editors Guild has put a new emphasis on organizing. While I oversee organizing at a national level, we also have Arsenia Reilly working full time to sign union work in New York and Andy Larson doing the same in Chicago. Some of our recent campaigns and goals include organizing projects produced by USA Entertainment, breaking into the largely non-union realm of reality television, and expanding into more facilities that do telecine and DVD authoring and mastering.

USA Entertainment

The Editors Guild has successfully organized three pictures that were being produced for USA Entertainment (or USA Cable, or USA Studios — better to just call them all USA). These shows are Tremors, a series by Protean Productions; Traffic, a six-hour mini-series by Traffic Jam Productions; and Stealing Christmas, a two-hour special by Via Genesis Productions.

All three shows were shot in Canada, usually by Vancouver IA crews. They are being edited on the Universal lot. Sound is scheduled to be done either by the Universal lot crews, or by one of two sound houses — all under Guild contract. In the end, the only people who wouldn’t have been union were the picture editors and their assistants.

The editorial crews from these three shows signed cards in March. They were joined by the crews of three other USA shows —Bugs, Helen of Troy and Thought Crimes — that had just a few days left but signed cards as a show of solidarity. As a result, we approached USA with six shows that wanted to go union! Because we had that kind of strength, USA directed the production companies to settle with us, and the three shows that had a significant amount of work left are now union. Many thanks to the crews on all these shows, especially to those who had little to gain but signed on to help their Guild brothers and sisters get a union contract.

Until USA signs a term contract that would cover all their pictures, we must continue to go after these productions individually. USA has moved their latest shows off the Universal lot so that they’re more difficult to find — it is critically important that you contact us if you are working on a USA show so we can keep up the pressure on them.

Organizing the Fall Line-Up of Reality Television

According to Variety, the networks plan to air more reality shows than ever in this fall’s prime time line-up. So far, very few projects of this type have been union, and the producers would like it to stay that way.

We simply cannot afford to let these shows remain non-union. If you are working on one of these productions, please contact the organizing staff at the Guild and/or fax us a crew list. We will keep your information confidential, of course.

Telecine and DVD

In New York and Los Angeles, we’ve also been focusing on post production houses that currently offer telecine and digital dailies services. The jurisdiction over this work was transferred to Local 700 when post production was consolidated into a single local a few years ago. Organizing these facilities represents a significant challenge due to several technological advances that are taking hold in this area. However, this work should be union and represents an important opportunity to build our strength and influence.

Also, the DVD explosion in the home video market has opened up a host of new jobs, including DVD authoring and mastering. Historically, the studios controlled most home video post production. But then smaller companies began offering the necessary technology and the studios began outsourcing the work. Currently, this market is in the midst of a massive consolidation by a few big companies that are buying up the smaller competition. If you know of people working in these areas who are interested in union representation, please ask them to contact us.

How You Can Help

As our industry evolves, we must expand our organizing into areas we haven’t considered before, or risk becoming irrelevant. Reality TV, telecine, digital dailies and DVD work are all part of the latest wave, and we need your help to bring this work under Guild contract. Our first step is to make contact with people working in these jobs. Please encourage them to speak with sympathetic co-workers, and ask them to help us build the critical mass needed to make a show or post house go union. If you know of any shows or companies that we should be aware of, please contact me, Arsenia or Andy.