>матрациw the Line interviews IA president Matthew Loeb

By Jack Egan

IATSE president Matthew D. Loeb has been president of IATSE since July 2008 when he was elected by the IA’s executive board to succeed Tom Short who suddenly stepped down after 14 years. At the recent IA quadrennial convention, in Orlando, Loeb chaired his first conclave and was re-elected unanimously to serve a full four-year term as International president of the world’s largest entertainment union, primarily representing below-the-line and behind the scenes workers. Following the convention, Loeb sat down with Jack Egan of BelowThe Line to discuss IATSE’s present and future.

Below the Line: This was the first convention you chaired. What was your takeaway?

Matthew Loeb: I got a tremendous sense of solidarity from sthe group, and a sense that the mission of the IA is shared by the entire delegation.

BTL: IATSE has been one of the few unions to add a significant number of new members—by some 50% from 1993 to mid-2008. Can this continue?

Loeb: Not at the same pace, but I think growth can continue for new media work, for the low budget work, the basic cable work, the reality TV work. There are also huge opportunities in the stagecraft and trade show work that we also represent.

BTL: You’ve been in charge of a lot of organizing in recent years, signing a lot of term agreements. Will that continue to be the pattern for IATSE?

Loeb: The term agreement secures the work for this union as opposed to competing unions. It also binds the employers on a long-term basis to renegotiate with us and build up a relationship with us. So yes, term agreements in organizing will remain key.

BTL: Doesn’t new technology in some ways reduce the number of jobs for your members?

Loeb: Sometimes it also potentially creates jobs. With digital technology, for instance, the advent of some of the new cameras caused new jobs to pop up with respect to servicing those cameras. There’s no question that some technology is designed to streamline the process, and the result is a diminishing number of jobs. But we’re going to stay ahead of it, retraining people, making sure that we organize people with the new technology to keep our handle on the labor force.

BTL: We’re still relatively early into the digital transition, but its impact is already pervasive. People in the art department, for example, are worried what happens to them when the sets for films and television shows are done primarily using computer graphics. We’ve already seen that in a few instances.

Loeb: First, you still need to have a production designer, even with CG. But we have to make sure our people are retrained so that the work that was done with a pencil, or at the drawing table or in the drafting room turns to the computer. We have to make sure that our people are ready to step up to those jobs and we have to organize the other people who are doing similar work.

BTL: At the last convention in Honolulu four years ago, your predecessor Tom Short talked about organizing the people in the computer graphics area. Is that still under consideration? And what’s the challenge of moving into this turf?

Loeb: Yes, it’s still under consideration. With all this digital technology potentially you can separate people geographically; you can do this kind of work from a number of different places. The challenge is first identifying the workforce, and them accessing them. Though some people see digital as a threat, technology is also an advantage. You have not just email, you have Facebook, Twitter and all those new social media—we can’t be left behind. We’re going to be up to speed. And we have some really bright people who can wrap their heads around the new technologies. But with respect to the work that’s done digitally, whether it’s CGI or animation or even video gaming—as far as I’m concerned those are all our organizing targets potentially.

BTL: I think a lot of people in the computer graphics and effects field would like to be organized, because they are freelancers now. And they have no leverage to negotiate.

Loeb: Maybe the Employee Free Choice Act that’s before Congress will help. The challenge is that in a freelance world, if you support having a union and the company wants to avoid the union, you don’t get called back for the next job, so you’re really under a lot of pressure. We’re going to continue to win the hearts and minds and get the support the old fashioned way. Maybe the new legislation under consideration, if it helps protect the worker a little bit with better enforcement, or some final contract arbitration–so that at least they know they will come out with a deal for a union—that will certainly help. But it’s hard to say when Congress is going to deal with that.

BTL: The latest word coming from Washington is that the Employee Free Choice Act won’t have the card check provision, to replace the secret vote, and that’s what unions have been wanting to attain for so long.

Loeb: My opinion is that we come from the position that we want all the pieces from the original act. But if we’re going to get cloture [60 votes to end a filibuster] from the Senate, they’re going to have to massage it. And what parts are left remains to be seen. And card check is being discussed as possibly being dropped. Anything that we can get is better than what we’ve had.

BTL: Who is Matt Loeb? Where have you come from to attain this position of International president?

Loeb: I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. I entered the industry in 1988-89 in New York. I was working mainly on movies, some TV commercials. I was working with the scenic artists union. I didn’t have that much talent, beyond doing stick figures. I started in the capacity of what they called “paint boys.” That term became politically incorrect, so it was changed to “shop man,” and then to “shop person.” That jobinvolved cleaning up after everybody at the end of the day, and ordering supplies and doing time cards.
And if you do time cards for 75 painters at 5 locations, you’ve got to know the contracts. You become the de facto steward on all those jobs. I learned the contracts and a position became available at the scenic artists union as a representative. I applied for that job, and worked there for about three years. I worked with Brian Unger who is now with the Director’s Guild. He had been the chairman of the East Coast Council of the IA. And when he left to go the DGA, he recommended me to then President Al Di Tolla. He hired me to take this spot as chairman of the East Coast Council. Then I became International vice president, director of the motion picture and television production department in 1998 when it was established. So there were a couple of steps in between scrubbing the paint boxes and where I am today.

BTL: You became IA president last July. So were you in charge of negotiating the latest three-year Hollywood Basic Agreement that was ratified by the members earlier this year?

Loeb: Negotiations on the Hollywood Basic Agreement began in early 2008. Tom Short was still the International president. We had a couple of sessions with the AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers]. We staked out a couple of positions—that was very helpful because we did that before the markets crashed. We came back in November after I had become president, and essentially held to those positions. The idea was that with all that was going on, and with the Writer’s Guild having struck plus other labor strife, we had remained a responsible union organization. So there was no justification for us getting a deal that was any less rich than what anybody else was getting.

BTL: But there were some givebacks in the end.

Loeb: We went into the negotiations $578 million in the hole on our pension fund which we had to make up to get the benefits back to where they were. The employers argued that the number was closer to $800 million. We spent three days staking out our position that it was the lower number. Then you start to bargain. We were able to get enough new money, over the term of three years, not only to cover a $578 million shortfall and keep our benefits intact, with no cuts whatever on the IAP part of the pensions. And then we acceded to some plan design changes, such as going from 300 to 400 hours as a work minimum every six months to qualify for the health coverage.
Beyond the 3 percent in annual wage increases we were able to obtain, we put the rest of the money into the health plan, which we consider most important to our members. If you retire and you have a big annuity account but crappy health insurance then you’re probably going to dip into your retirement money to pay for your health.

BTL: And those health expenditures can be huge as you grow older.

Loeb: And that leads to a discussion in my mind about the overall health crisis and what it does to the country’s economy, and what it does to labor unions’ bargaining process. You can’t solve this at the bargaining table when health care costs are increasing by double digits each year. If you look at other non-IA guilds in this industry, you will see that despite the increase in medical co-pays, and the other design changes and streamlining in the contract, we really held our own.

BTL: So you think you got a pretty good deal net-net?

Loeb: I don’t think you’ll find many agreements reached by the American labor movement that closed in November 2008, when the economy was in free fall, and that look as good as this one. You can see what happened to the auto workers.

BTL: In the last negotiating round with the studios, the Writers Guild of America went out on strike for over 3 months, and the Screen Actors Guild went a year after their contract expired, creating a de facto strike atmosphere, before they reached a new deal. What do you expect will happen in the next negotiating round, which is now less than two years away?

Loeb: We’re going to watch to see how the next round of leadership elections in those guilds plays out. I’m hoping for a more stable leadership environment. And that will be pivotal with respect to the next cycle.

BTL: What is the relationship like between the entertainment companies and the Hollywood unions these days?

Loeb: It varies by the union, and it varies by issue. With respect to piracy we’re collaborating with these companies. And we had a very stable negotiation last time. Some of the other unions had instability and the writers had a strike. The relationships are different with each of the unions. Ours has been stable.

BTL: One issue you have worked on in your previous position as head of the IA’s motion picture and television production department, and stressed at this convention, is the issue of piracy of films and other entertainment product. Most people wouldn’t think that the below-the-line guilds would care that much about this problem. Explain how piracy affects you, and affects you very directly.

Loeb: It certainly affects the flow of revenues to the studios, and thus the resulting residuals into our health and pension plans. The revenue stream is what funds production throughout the United States, Canada and globally, If you pull money out of the revenue stream through piracy, there’s simply going to be less work and less jobs for our members that might otherwise be the case, and there’s less money for benefits and less money to get at the bargaining table.

BTL: Despite all the talk about the impact of piracy, I haven’t heard much in the way of a solution.

Loeb: It’s a global problem first of all, and we have to work with our global allies. I’m talking about the unions and guilds here and elsewhere that are affected and the employers that have a major stake in this thing. But frankly you don’t have a lot of resources available. We have to probably get in bed with music and publishing who have the same kinds of issues with respect to intellectual property.
In my view the biggest problem we have right now is that we lack somebody or some organization to coordinate the anti-piracy effort. I don’t believe that labor will coordinate this on behalf of the major studios. The IA can take a leadership role in coordinating the labor piece of the puzzle. But there are many other pieces. There also has to be a media campaign. We have to culturally change attitudes from the days we traded cassette tapes back and forth, to today where there are millions of illegal copies made of a DVD and downloading from the internet isn’t considered as theft. Again it’s not just a labor issue.

BTL: The studios have even more at stake.

Loeb: The studios and also those other industries I mentioned. We shouldn’t wait to get our heads around this problem and finding somebody or some organization to take the leadership role in coordinating all the different pieces. The piracy technology is here, and it’s only a matter of time before it gets out of control. We can’t go the way of the music industry. We can’t sue a 10 year old for a million dollars—that doesn’t work. I don’t any 10 year olds with a million dollars.

BTL: How has the present sharp slide in the economy affected IATSE workers.

Loeb: It depends on which part of the organization you’re talking about. With stage crafts, we have benefactors putting up less money, the contributions from endowments are down, so the smaller theaters are really getting pinched. And that puts a lot of pressure on the bargaining process. But Broadway is strong. Audiences, many from Europe and other parts of the world, have held up even with a stronger dollar which makes it more expensive for them.
Motion picture production has also held up pretty well. People like to be entertained—it’s not expensive like a vacation or a new car –and people haven’t given up going to movies. So we’re holding our own on the motion picture end. The trade show business is getting hurt. It’s one of the first things to go when you cut back. You can see what’s happening in Orlando and in Las Vegas.

BTL: Are there real profits to be made on the internet?
Loeb: I don’t think families want to sit around the computer and eat popcorn and watch a movie yet. But I believe there will soon be a seamless entertainment model where your big-screen television and your computer and the internet are probably going to become one thing. I think that they will digitize every picture ever made, and everything will come over the internet. At some point that will happen.
The real question is how that will change traditional entertainment on television. Right now I don’t see it as a big thret. People still like the half hour and hour long shows. The little three-minute snippets on the internet are popular and they get a million hits. But there’s not a lot of money. However, when the internet is delivering everything, and there’s no more need to get of the house to see a movie recently released or to rent a DVD when you can hit a download button becomes another story. Will it erode or cannibalize anything that exists now? That remains to be seen.

BTL: What is the relationship between the entertainment companies and the Hollywood unions these days?

Loeb: It varies by the union, and it varies by issue. With respect to piracy we’re collaborating these companies. And we had a very stable negotiation last time. Some of the other unions had instability and the writers had a strike. The relationships are different with each of the unions. Ours has been stable.

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It’s a Wrap at the IATSE Convention
By Jack Egan

The 66th convention of the IATSE, taking place in Orlando near Walt Disney World, concluded Friday with the same lockstep unanimity that was the case for the entire five days of the meeting. The election of officers for the union was pro forma, since no one ran in opposition to any of the candidates on the official slate.

Matthew D. Loeb was re-elected International President of the IA by acclamation. Loeb said solidarity and cooperation between the 400 local unions in the United States and Canada that come together under the IATSE umbrella, characterized the convention. “There are no divisions between the crafts,” he stated in a warning to employers. “You take on one of us, you take on all of us,” he said in final remarks to the 880 delegates in attendance.

This was the first convention Loeb presided over and the first time he was officially elected. He moved up to the top job at the end of July 2008 when Tom Short suddenly stepped down after a 14 year tenure. Loeb had previously served on the IA’s executive board as first vice president and was chairman of the East Coast Council for over 14 years. m

The issues stressed by Loeb and others at the confab included the need for national health care reform and the threat of internet piracy to films and other entertainment product.
The delegates I talked to responded favorably Loeb’s ascendance, calling him “a uniting force,” and a “stabilizer,” after Short’s sometimes tumultuous but mainly successful reign. Loeb was also seen as “a forward-looking leader” at a time when digital technologies and new systems of media distribution–over the internet and cell-phones—are reshaping the entertainment industry and calling for new worker skills.

Also re-elected unanimously was James B. Wood, the General Secretary-Treasurer and the return of the entire General Executive Board, consisting of 13 vice-presidents, as well as three international trustees and the union’s delegate to the Canadian Labor Congress.

The IATSE represents members employed in the motion picture and television production, stagecraft, and trade show industries throughout the United States, its Territories, and Canada.

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Just in to BTL: Most Reed Business Information (RBI) publications put up for sale as invidiual entities… More details coming….

Additionally: Publications covering the book biz (Publishers Weekly and Library Journal are part of the sale), have been a little swifter covering the story. Media Bistro has a good overview…

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Pirates of the Internet: Topic “A” at IATSE Meet
By Jack Egan

Piracy of film and television product has moved to the top of the agenda at the IATSE convention now underway in Orlando, Florida. “The internet has become a sort of Wild West frontier, where anyone can steal our work with a click of the computer,” Jay Roth, the executive director of the Directors Guild of America, said in a featured address to the IA delegates in attendance. “Digital piracy is instaneous and accessible to anybody who has an internet connection,” he said.

With the most to lose, the entertainment conglomerates have been at the vanguard in trying to reign in the theft of their intellectual property by illegal downloads over the internet. But the IA unions gathered here also feel the livelihood of their members is threatened—a point IA president Matthew Loeb also made in his opening-day remarks . That’s because loss of revenues to the studios from piracy diminishes the amount they contribute to the pension and health funds of the below-the-line Hollywood guilds.

“The theft of audio visual work via the internet is the most immediate threat we face,” asserted Roth. (Though not an IA union, the DGA has in the past been a friend and informal ally of IATSE, and Roth has been a speaker at previous conventions.) “As technology continues to improve, piracy problems will increase exponentially,” he predicted. “What digital piracy does is destroy the after-markets that let our members keep working.“

Roth noted that up to 70% of what entertainment companies make from film and TV production comes after initial release, in the form DVD sales and other ancillary redistribution. Those resales are undermined if product is pirated first for free.
“There is no more important issue facing us at this point,” agreed Bruce Doering, the executive director of the International Cinematographers Guild, IA Local 600, who quantified the financial impact at another session. He estimated global revenue losses from internet piracy of Hollywood product at about $6 billion, which directly impacts members of the ICG and other below-the-line guilds. “The IA motion picture health and pension funds, can’t afford to lose $100 million a year,” he stated.

“This is a battle that cannot be won without the leadership of labor,” Roth concluded in his speech concluded. “We can’t depend on the entertainment companies to do it themselves.”

However, for all the hand-wringing, neither the studios nor the guilds have come up with an effective solution to the piracy problem.

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