The newly formed Coalition of Philly Crew is made up of about 50 nonunion technical workers who say they have been denied membership in the Queens-based local of a powerful union that supplies labor for motion picture and TV productions.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
To bring film and TV back to Philly, crew workers want own union local
The newly formed Coalition of Philly Crew is made up of about 50 nonunion technical workers who say they have been denied membership in the Queens-based local of a powerful union that supplies labor for motion picture and TV productions.
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4 comments:
I have very little practical experience working with IATSE or other unions and have not yet been in a union myself, so a lot of what I’m about to say may be colored by a lack of knowledge.
It makes sense to me that Philly should have its own local, rather than being attached to a NYC local and I have no idea why IASTE would resist allowing these technicians to organize closer to home. Queens is more than two hours away from Philly. Isn’t it in the best interests of the whole union that individual members negotiate contracts that work for both them and local employers, especially if it leads to more work? Isn’t that the whole point of a local? It doesn’t seem like it would do damage to Local 52. I can’t imagine they are hurting for work in NYC and it sounds that they 1) don’t make much use of the Philly members and 2) are looking to expand by accepting new members.
I suppose Local 52 might be concerned that allowing Philly to have lower wages might pull work out of NYC, but that wouldn’t be the case if Mr. Haddad is to be believed ( though I don’t know that I do.)
I don’t really have an opinion on this topic since this article really doesn’t produce all sides of the case. On one hand you have workers who can’t find work and blame the union and on the other hand you have the union who has no comment. Absence of a comment does not imply guilt so I can’t say that because these guys want in on Local 52 and Local 52 said no, that local 52 is in the wrong. At the very end there is what is almost played as an offhanded comment that the only reason there are no movies shooting in Philly is because there are no movies based in Philly or based somewhere that only looks like Philly. Plus, tax breaks like the ones in Pittsburgh are a huge incentive. I was talking to my Uber about all the filming in Pittsburgh and he made a good point that between the city and the outskirts, Pittsburgh can look like most other places in the country. So I say when a movie wants to be in Philly, let it be there and see how the labor works out.
Having worked in the Philadelphia area and seen the fact that trying to join the union is feasible nigh impossible for someone based out of Philadelphia I can fully understand the arguments made in this article. That be said when the article states that Philadelphia is not giving tax breaks to attract filming it false also I have seen multiple time where filming in Philadelphia has been used to clone a NYC street. Evan closer to my own home with the filming of Signs when Delaware Valley College was made to appear as town out in the middle of nowhere. So the argument that it not possible to make it seem like anywhere USA I don't feel is a strong one. I feel this is more of geographical problem where Philadelphia's closeness to NYC is hindering it. For the sake of quite a few friends back home I hope they are successful in making their own local
This just seems dumb on the part of IATSE. A city as large as Philadelphia should not be grouped in the same local as one from New York city. Part of the reason being that they are not really that close together geographically, but also there are two completely different needs between the two groups. I agree with the union members here in some ways, but I also understand the counterargument. I think the fact that the workers in Philadelphia cannot join their local shows a poorly designed system on the part of the administration; however, the fact that there are no jobs for these currently non existent members is a separate issue entirely — in my opinion. Also, all of the counterargument quotes came from people outside of Philadelphia. There were no quotes from people inside of the city saying that the workers are incorrect in attempting to begin their own local. Also, the fact that none of the administration wished to respond to the comment requests makes me uneasy about what the administration actually thinks of this group of workers in Philadelphia, which is a few hour drive from where the majority of them are in New York City.
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