By Robert Goldrich

LOS ANGELES --

Members of Teamsters Local 399 Hollywood have overwhelmingly approved revised commercial contracts reached in negotiations with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP). Covering California and a number of other Western states, the two new contracts–one for drivers and wranglers, the other for location scouts and managers–take effect on February 22, 2015 and expire on January 31, 2017.

Local 399 membership approved the contracts on January 24, quite a turnaround from some two weeks earlier when rank-and-file in attendance turned a thumbs down on the originally negotiated pacts. The initial “no” vote was tantamount to a strike authorization for Local 399, triggering plans to picket commercial production companies. But both sides returned to the bargaining table, putting in another 16 hours of talks resulting in the revised and ultimately approved agreements.

Matt Miller, president and CEO of the AICP, said that both sides made concessions in reaching the revised contracts. He related that each side listened to the other and made a concerted effort to address concerns. He noted, for example, that the Teamsters wanted to simplify expansion of the low-budget provision so that the union could more easily police and oversee its utilization. In the first go-around, the system involved four tiers of low-budget work. While that multi-tier approach gave way to a simpler setup in the revised agreement, the low budget provision’s intent, affirmed Miller, remains intact, opening up employment opportunities for union members by enabling AICP production companies to compete for work that they were otherwise losing out on.

“Our member companies are not allowed to work nonunion and they don’t want to,” said Miller. “The reality is that our members and union workers are losing out on the increasing amount of low-budget jobs that are being done nonunion instead by ad agency in-house production entities, foreign and small nonunion companies. The work is often going overseas or to other states where there are incentive programs for commercials. The new contracts relax some of the rules so that we can better compete for this work and hire union members. The agreements we negotiated are good for both the union and for us. One of the union’s prime responsibilities is to find and help create more employment opportunities for their members–and these contracts help to do that.”

Members of the Teamsters negotiating committee included drivers Gene Alford, Mike Armstrong, Damian Baker, Jr Bartoli, John Cucura, Jordo Edelman, Artie Fuentes, Derik Hixon and Mateo Pinkerton, and locations professionals Joe Amplo, Brian Bird, Matthew Cassel, George Goodman, Cale Hanks, Flint Maloney, David McKinney, Jeff Morris, Keith Nakata, Mel Wilson and Frank Yoshikane.

AICP members who helped to bring negotiations to a successful conclusion were Marjie Abrahams of RSA, Maddi Carlton of HSI, Rich Carter of brother, Andrew Colon and Lisa Rich of Smuggler, Robert Fernandez of Moxie, Ralph Laucella of O Positive, Todd Makurath of Bullitt, Gary Rose of GO, Frank Scherma of @radical.media, Shelly Townsend of Skunk, and legal counsel Alan Brunswick of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and Bob Sacks of Kane Kessler.

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