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I'm pretty sure the idea of operators not bringing prints up to the booth has faded. The same idea applied to auto-workers: "Some guy gets $20 an hour to mearly insert the cig lighter on the assembly line all day!" I'm sure it has happended, but I don't think this is the way unions currently want to operate. They know owners could choose not to renew contracts, and are interested in getting the dead wood out. Remember though, by law they can't just throw people out, and older guys willing to learn should be helped understanding new technology. So it will take some time.

On the other side of the coin; the company I work for recently opened a theater in Chicago, with union operators. After looking at some paperwork, I think they may actually save us money. We have to send service people constantly to fix simple little things in non-union booths because no one knows even simple mainteince. In Chicago , these guys are good; even the regular operators know how to hook up and use an R2 unit.

Do we really want to leave decisions such as the wages we are paid, the security of our jobs, the provisions for health care and pensions for our advanced years,solely in the hands of corporate executives?

Do we really believe that supply and demand work in our favor, and that employers will voluntarily pay high wages for skilled full-time employees, when they have the alternative of hiring part-time teenagers without benefits?

Are we willing to disenfranchise ourselves from sharing in the determination of our working conditions, qualifications, vacations, contractual benefits and opportunities for advancement?

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I looked at mine, and I looked at Phil's...

Long story made short, I was licensed in 1981 and worked "permit" for 2 years in a carbon/changeover house before joining local 173 in 1983. Happiest day of my young life. Although I never did the full apprenticeship that many of my colleagues did, I always learned as much as I could -- thanks for everything Gord, Rick and Rick Jr....

When I saw the writing on the wall in 1996 and '97 I decided to try my hand at some other careers. Projection was clearly on the way out, and I'm pretty darned good with computers and electronics, so I ventured out and became a network administrator, finally taking a withdrawal card in December '99. I believed that unions in exhibition were a waste, un-necessary and had outlived their usefullness.

When I moved to New York City in 2000 I was secure in my "knowledge" that unions were the ruin of places like NYC, where an illiterate subway cleaner can make $30 an hour. I was skilled. I earned the knowledge necessary to make me enough money until I chose to retire early.

But a few funny--and not so funny--things happened on the way to that retirement party. I started to read Film-Tech and saw that the art of projection wasn't nearly as dead as I'd been led to believe. That union--and non-union--projectionists still had some love for their craft and it wasn't ALL 16-year-old popcorn shovelers and 20something grunge-loving-ADD-riddled punks from the "whatever" generation running shows. There were still some talented pros out there doing that job I'd given up for dead.

Things changed rather dramatically for workers in New York City since I moved here. First the dotcom bust, and then a certain sunny Tuesday morning last September. All of a sudden $60k network admin jobs didn't exist any more. 800+ resumes to tech firms yielded a handful of interviews and few part-time contracts. All the while, my union-employed wife smiled her little "I Told You So" smile.

And every time I went to the movies in those days of working outside the industry, I kept wanting to sneak upstairs and beg to thread up and run just one last show; to make up a print; to time a platter, replace a bulb, help with an A-chain or B-chain alignment. But no, it was my job to pay the money and watch the scratched/jittery/dirty show. At least until I built my THX 6.1 home theatre.

So now faced with an uncertain future in the neo-conservative world of the "rugged individualist,"--indeed the world of the Worldcoms and Enrons, my love of the job is pointing me back to the booth once more.

I hope to carry a card for Local 306 here in the City at some point, and to help re-live those grand days at the Kingsway and the Showcase; the relief list and the smell of popcorn wafting through the booth.

I don't know if Gerald's hope of us influencing legislation will ever come about again, at least outside of New York City...the rest of the country is so rabidly anti-union as to make that premise untennable politically. Perhaps the best we can hope for is to provide a service with *trained professionals* that employers will WANT to call upon and pay a fair wage for. Maybe, too, we'll seek out better training and opportunities for ourselves and try to co-operate with employers in making us more knowledgeable of current and new technologies.

If the unions fail to weed out the dead wood from their ranks; if they fail to learn, master and test themselves on the newest technologies; if they fail to show up on time; if they fail to do what's asked of them by the employers, then they will surely fail their employers and this craft will doom itself into oblivion. Is there a role for projectionists' unions today? Yes. Are the members serving that role? That's the question everyone must ask themselves.

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Cheers,
PJ Dougherty

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Bumping this thread up to the top in response to German's question about payment, and Brad's comments, in Film-Yak...

Gerard

Had mixed experieces with projectionist unions. In my native NZ, in the mid 1980s, we had a government in force who insisted that every worker was a member of a union. You could opt out on moral grounds but you still had to pay union fees to a charity (few did). To run a cinema you had to be a paid up member of the projectionist union, who insisted that (even in 1988 with full automation and platters) there was one operator per screen. In 1984 Mid City, a 4 plex fully automated and with one booth, opened with four operators on at a time - needless to say they got bored, pissed each other off and rather than look at realistic manning levels the union suggested that the cinema owner install a pool table (they did !).

The projectionist union also controlled the flim exchanges, so any house without paid up operators would mysteriously find their films arriving late or with a missing reel. On the positive side, the projectionist union was a driving force behind the two year mandatory training scheme, which required each operator to take formal courses in electrical practice, sound and film and projector maintainence. I look back on my training notes and have yet to see a more comprehensive training program - it was slow though - in theory you could work in the booth for a full year without ever lacing up a machine. I was fortunate - after 3 months I was allowed to clean the carbon dust from the Peerless'. (NZ was behind the times technically - carbon arcs and 2000' spools were the norm in even the 1980s - I guess the chains thought that there would be no advantage of platters when the "one man per screen" rule was in place). We installed the first platter in Auckland City in 1982, only to be met from a barrage of suspicion and criticism.

As one who has had three surgical operations to correct hernias,
I am grateful that IATSE Local 306 rules relieved projectionists of the work of delivering film cans to and from the booths.

This task was usually performed by the theatre "porter", a robust
individual with stronger abdominal muscles who typically belonged to another union, complete with benefits, and often worked many years for the same theatre or chain. I remember with chagrin the day his employment ended, when the chain contracted a group of non-union Chinese of doubtful immigration status, whose brief tenure saw a replacement by a group from Mexico. The condition of the theatre did not benefit by any possible savings that may have accrued to the chain.

Unions struggle for the rights and benefits of their workers, who are addressed as "Brother Jones" or "Sister Brown" at meetings.
Membership typically requires citizenship and an age of maturity (21). The International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees was formed as a craft union, but as the Americal Federation of Labor merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the combined brotherhood has expanded to include skilled, semi-skilled, and "unskilled" unions of workers.

Theaters should be designed for the movement of prints as well as people, and managements should use personnel effectively to traffic films as efficiently as audiences. Dumbwaiters, block and tackle and hand-carry have been replaced by freight elevators in some modern theatres.
And floor staff, when composed of steady employees seeking to improve their wages, advancement opportunities and benefits, are free to form their own unions. The IATSE has expanded to include ground floor locals, and the drive continues.

Gerard

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Reducing the number of operators from three to one at start-up sounds like a classic management speed-up technique used as punishment. In
a stronger legal environment you'd have a good case against management, but unless the Labor and Justice Departments provide support, managements in states where anti-union forces succeed, can deprive workers of their constitutional rights.

The earliest organizers in America faced goon squads, depuity sheriffs
and even militias with tear gas and guns to achieve the right to organize, under the Bill of Rights freedom of assembly and right to petition for relief of grievances. They achieved the rights to organize and collectively bargain on contracts. But their supreme weapon was the right to withhold their labor via the strike. And the leaders risked beatings and jailings to achieve their goals.

Later generations took for granted the achievements of their elders and were unwilling to sacrifice to defend their gains. Some few leaders became corrupt and sold out their constituents, making deals with employers and politicians; others grew too soft to fight the growing strength of the opposition.

Any organization is only as good as its members and the leaders who grow from their ranks. I still belong to one honest, idealistic union still growing strong, completely democratic, in which I have participated for decades as chapter chairman, picket captain and Assembly delegate. I have also belonged to a union that was undemocratic, demogogic, and weak....among other unflattering aspects.
)
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars,
But in Ourselves, that we are underlings..."--W.S.

Gerard

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