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Online exclusive -- 8/20/05. IATSE member Mike Everett sends us this report from his union's convention in July. We welcome reports from other IATSE members, concurring and dissenting, as well as comments on this piece. -- Ed.
I.A.T.S.E.: Showdown in Waikiki
The 65th International convention of IATSE held at the Sheraton Waikiki was adjourned July 22 and no one who was there will ever forget it. While four years ago at the 64th International convention the dissidents numbered but a handful and focused on the union's failure to deal with the outsourcing of film and television jobs, this time they showed up in force and came with an agenda for democratic reform.
In the four years since Chicago, a strong current of reform has been sweeping through the union, principally in the film and television section of the union. Last year dissidents under the banner of the Coalition for a Democratic Union, organizing around the outsourcing issue had swept the elections of Camera local 600, a key local that represents camera crews throughout the U.S. Meanwhile other Hollywood film locals had been engaging in incremental reform and had begun electing dissidents to key offices. Adding to the ferment was a relentless reform campaign conducted on the Internet.
Even the location of the 65th convention in Hawaii had been a serious point of contention for the dissidents. For a hundred years IATSE had held biennial conventions, then briefly went to triennial conventions, and at the last convention, IATSE president Tom Short claiming the union needed to save money urged delegates to vote for a four year convention and as a reward, that convention would be held in Hawaii, arguably the most expensive site that could have been selected.
Reform delegates arrived in Hawaii with a number of resolutions aimed at democratic reform and designed to break the official script and provoke discussion over serious issues in place of the usual fluff.
These resolutions included:
1) A resolution to freeze the enormous salaries of our unelected International officers (traditionally there is a white ballot, and therefore no election.)
2) IATSE to comply with Section 105 of the LMRDA and publish the Union Member's Bill of Rights on its web page, once a year in our official bulletin, and in the back of our C&BL's.
3) IATSE to acknowledge and apologize for its key role in the Hollywood Blacklist and to delete the 'red clause' from our C&BL's as the other Hollywood unions already have.
4) A return to a three-year convention and the convention to be at a site with reasonable transportation and lodging costs.
All of these resolutions failed with the exception of the Section 105 resolution, which pointed to the Union Member's Bill of Rights, buried on our official web page, and declared the resolution would apply to the locals and not the International.
However, the resolutions were only the smallest part of what happened at the convention. Even before the first session began, an anonymous 'wanted' flyer with my name and my photo on it and taking me to task for criticizing the choice of Hawaii as a convention site was being passed out to delegates as they entered the convention hall. The following morning, yet another anonymous flyer was passed out attacking a local 600 delegate who was also a leader of the movement against the outsourcing of film jobs. When local 600 president Gary Dunham jumped from his seat and waving the flyers in his hand, demanded to know who dared admit to authorship of the flyers, to the amazement of all, President Short said that he was the author.
The convention was characterized by an atmosphere of fear from start to finish, including veiled threats of violence contained in the flyers. When local 600 president Gary Dunham encountered president Short in a hallway on his way to filing a protest over his local's resolutions being rejected on technical grounds, Mr. Short asked him, "How tall are you, about five eleven?" When Dunham replied in the affirmative, Mr. Short said, "Let's see how fucking tall you are tomorrow after you file that protest." Dunham just laughed, but Mr. Short jabbed a finger at him, and warned, "Don't laugh!"
Though the active and visible members of our caucus were a few dozen at most, and though we were time and again voted down by a majority, countless delegates approached us privately and expressed their support for us as well as their fears of retribution should they make their support public.
What did we accomplish? At the very least we stood our ground, stuck to the issues, and sent a message that the democratic reform movement in IATSE is alive, well, and growing.
See also: Internet wins in IATSE Local 600
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