IATSE-2nd2018_web

in a day or a week, whereas with live TV it took much longer.
This resulted in less work for IATSE members who had been
working not only on the production of shows but on the
rehearsals as well. Worst of all, shows recorded on tape could
be re-broadcast many times over, thereby providing networks
with a source of program material that dispensed with the
necessity of IA crafts.
Additionally, the development of mobile video cameras used
in the field to cover news stories sparked a heated controversy
over who would represent the camera operators. Although
IATSE argued that the news motion picture crews possessed the
know-how and experience to cover news in the field and should
therefore be awarded the jurisdiction over the so-called ENG
(Electronic News Gathering) function, the networks awarded
the work to IBEW or NABET.
Litigation resulted, but for the most part the award of
jurisdiction by the networks was upheld by the NLRB, by
arbitrators, by the courts in some instances, and by the impartial
umpire under Article 20 of the AFL-CIO Constitution.
The end result was that the engineering unions by and large
took over the function of gathering news in the field through
electronic cameras using videotape. Many IA members who had
done this work in the past were required to become members
of IBEW or NABET to stay employed by the networks.
But IATSE kept at it. And in 1964, President Walsh signed
an agreement with the Association of Motion Picture Producers
and the Alliance of Television Film Producers 4 that covered
videotape productions.
Later on, videotape had a profound impact on IATSE
members in other ways. Tape could be reused, and did not
require as much careful lighting as film. Video cameras were
perfected to the point where virtually anyone could use one. The
result was that many “independent” producers began to make
video films for television as well as movies.
LANDMARKS OF TV NEWS
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, several major events
impacted society and network news programming — and the
work lives of IATSE members. The U.S. visit of Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev kept hundreds of IA camera operators,
sound technicians, electricians, grips, gaffers and other technical
personnel working around the clock to cover the historic occasion.
The election of John F. Kennedy as President in 1960 was
another major event that transformed TV. The first Kennedy-
Nixon debate was at a CBS affiliate, WBWM in Chicago. Station
technicians were required to meet all kinds of demands on
the part of the candidates’ entourages, including painting the
background on the set two times, the last time shortly before the
debate was to begin. The IATSE members on the set of that first
debate helped make history.
The Kennedy inauguration lasted all day and into the
night, just as coverage of his assassination would preoccupy
tens of millions of Americans just a few years later. In the latter
instance, television served the dual purpose of informing the
public and helping the nation to grieve. The images gathered by
IATSE technical crews were emotionally riveting. Forever after,
IA members would find themselves in the midst of national
and international events knowing that Canadian and American
citizens were relying on them to bring news into the living
room. Wars, urban riots, the conquest of space, live telecasts of
congressional hearings on everything from civil unrest to the
possible impeachment of a President — IA members made it
possible for the people to be eyewitnesses to all of these pivotal
events.
4
The two organizations merged in 1982 and became the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
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