IATSE-2nd2018_web

ORGANIZING AND GROWTH
Like most unions in the period from the 1950s to the 1990s, IATSE focused more on serving and representing the existing membership
than on organizing. One consequence was that membership stagnated and has often been said of business and in other
contexts, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” No one was going to let that happen to the Alliance.
President Di Tolla had already started the process of reviving
IATSE’s organizing efforts, and President Short and his team
worked to take them to a new level by actively focusing on
organizing the unorganized in previously ignored geographic
areas and new technical venues.
For example, a classification of workers, Art Department
Coordinators was an organizing success in 1996, when members
of this craft affiliated with IATSE Local 717 (later merged into
Local 871).
In the theater world, Denver Local 7 won an election at a
theater operated by Clear Channel after the latter reneged on a
voluntary recognition deal. In Washington, D.C., Clear Channel
voluntarily agreed to recognize Local 22.
In the Motion Picture and Television areas, IATSE
spearheaded a substantial increase in organizing in all areas
of production, setting the table for national contracts, pay TV
agreements, and eventually unscripted and reality programming.
In tradeshow and display work, IATSE continued to enlarge
the number of venues and succeeded in reaching agreement in
Hartford, Charlotte, Boston and West Palm Beach by 2003.
In Canada, IATSE’s tireless efforts throughout that decade
resulted in mergers with other labour organizations in the
motion picture and television fields, making the IA the dominant
entertainment industry trade union in the nation. Canadian local
unions embraced the concept of organizing so fiercely that IATSE
membership in the country doubled between 1993 and 2003.
These efforts proved beyond any doubt that success breeds
success. The more victorious organizing drives IATSE has
spearheaded, the more willing employers have been to forego
protracted NLRB proceedings and the threat of an IA job action.
As a result, IATSE membership grew from 74,000 members in
1993 to 105,000 in 2003 — a whopping forty-two percent increase!
SPORTS TELEVISION
One of the top targets during the decade from 1993 to
2003 was sports broadcasting. Many of these organizing drives
resulted in successful National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
elections, including Southwest Television, and Comcast Mid-
Atlantic.
After a three year organizing drive, a contract was negotiated
with National Mobile Television (NMT) covering freelance
employees and providing benefits, a union security clause, and
job security. National Mobile Television was the largest supplier of
remote broadcast production trucks in the country. Workers joined
Locals 600, 695, 700, 800, and 871, performing work for the Los
Angeles Lakers and Clippers NBA teams, the Anaheim Angels and
Los Angeles Dodgers baseball teams, and the Anaheim Ducks and
Los Angeles Kings hockey teams. This was among the first of many
fruitful campaigns organizing freelance sports television workers.
In 1997, IATSE started organizing the freelance sports
technicians working regional TV across the Country and the
following Locals were chartered:
4 Local 793 Washington State, covering the Seattle Mariners,
Seattle Sounders, Seattle Supersonics (before they moved to
Oklahoma City), and college sports.
4 Local 795 San Diego, covering the San Diego Padres and
college sports.
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