Incumbent president Steven Poster, ASC was re-elected and the slate of candidates backing the policies of the current administration won a decisive majority on the National Executive Board of the International Cinematographers Guild in the unofficial election results announced yesterday.
Poster, who first won the Guild’s presidency six years ago, ran unopposed, as did three of the six other national officers he supported. In the contested races two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer John Toll, ASC easily won re-election as second vice-president as did incumbent national secretary-treasurer Alan Gitlin. Assistant national secretary-treasurer Bruce MacCallum won the most tightly contested race.
The officers running unopposed were vice-president Lewis Rothenberg, 1st vice-president Paul Varrieur, and sergeant-at-arms Michael St. Hilaire.
Those pledging their support to Poster also won an overwhelming majority among the remaining 67 NEB seats.
“It’s time to put the slates behind us and unite to fight for the interests of all members. The Guild and our parent body, the IATSE, are facing unprecedented attacks on our staffing, wages and working conditions,” Poster said.
“I am looking forward to working with every one of our elected Board members to create a strategy that will train our members for the jobs of the digital future and establish new levels of membership service.”
Poster emphasized that Local 600’s Board will continue to strongly support the extraordinarily innovative and progressive leadership of IATSE International leadership of President Mathew D. Loeb.
National executive director Bruce Doering continues in his role at the ICG.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More