Stage Workers Picket at Cannon in Effort to Organize Film Studio

As a sign of a vow made earlier this year to be more aggressive in organizing non-union film companies, the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) this week launched a union recognition strike against Cannon Films and several of its ongoing movie projects.

Cannon, the largest non-union studio in Hollywood, said the strike was having no immediate impact on the productions, including “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” being directed by Norman Mailer in Provincetown, Mass. Nonetheless, company chairman Menahem Golan threatened to move more production out of Los Angeles if IATSE “persists in its actions.”

Ironically, the strike comes at the same time that IATSE is negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for a specialized new contract for low-budget films in an attempt to keep more production in Hollywood.

About 40% of movies are currently made with non-union employees, according to Mack St. Johns, IATSE’s public relations director. The growth of non-union productions is putting increasing pressure on the union to make accommodations with the producers of unionized films, who say they need to cut costs to stay competitive.

Host of Issues

The strike also comes at a time when Cannon Group Inc., the parent of Cannon Films, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission on several issues. Last week the parent company reported a loss of $5.8 million for the first nine months of 1986. The price of the company’s stock has also dropped in recent weeks.

Several months ago, Al DiTolla, the union’s president, announced that IATSE would intensify its efforts to organize non-union film and television production. The union has had some success during the summer “but not as much as we would like,” St. Johns said.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, IATSE put up picket lines outside Cannon’s Los Angeles headquarters, at Laird Studios in Culver City where Cannon is shooting “Masters of the Universe,” in Provincetown at the site of the Mailer film and in Lafayette, La., where Cannon is making “Shy People.” St. Johns said picketing will resume Monday unless an agreement was reached over the weekend.

The union’s goal is to get Cannon to recognize it as the bargaining agent for some of its full-time employees and for a variety of individuals--including camera operators, grips, stagehands and electricians--who work on Cannon productions.

Has Agreements

Although Cannon has collective bargaining agreements with the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, it has never formally recognized IATSE, the primary union representing production workers in the film industry.

IATSE represents 65,000 workers in the United States, including about 24,000 in Hollywood. The membership includes camera operators, film editors, projectionists, grips, costumers, makeup artists and special-effects personnel. In Hollywood, the union has 24 locals.

For years, studio operators have been attempting to persuade the union to loosen strict provisions in contracts that delineated who could do what work on a movie set. Film producers say that they are saddled with excessive costs because the rigidity of job definitions in contracts force them to hire more people than they need.

In its last set of major negotiations with the alliance in 1985, the union agreed to allow film producers to cross-utilize personnel considerably more than in the past, enabling the producers to cut costs.

“We may have to go a little further” in the 1988 negotiations, St. Johns acknowledged.

Operating outside IATSE’s jurisdiction has enabled Cannon to make movies cheaper than the major studios.

Signatures Gathered

IATSE circulated union authorization cards at Cannon and at sites of its current productions in recent weeks. The union gathered signatures from 65% of affected employees, according to George Dibie, president of Local 659, which represents camera operators.

St. Johns said the union decided to call a strike because Cannon would not grant recognition based on the authorization cards and because it would be impractical to petition for a National Labor Relations Board election. Most of the people who would be covered by a collective-bargaining agreement are not full-time Cannon employees, he noted.

“By the time you get cards back from people and you hold an election, normally a production is finished,” St. Johns said. “An election would be useless. Like everyone else in Hollywood (except film laboratory technicians),” these people work picture to picture.”

Golan has said in the past that operating under an IATSE agreement would dramatically increase the company’s costs. He said that Cannon incurred $2 million in additional costs when it operated under the IATSE contract in making “Over The Top,” an as-yet-unreleased film about arm wrestling starring Sylvester Stallone

St. Johns called the statement “balderdash.”

‘Big Star’

Golan said he had agreed to do the Stallone film with union workers because “when you work with such an immense, big star, it is so, well call it in the front line, that they (unions) would have been picketing us every day” otherwise.

After the pickets went up this week, Golan issued a statement saying that Cannon had expressed interest in getting a low-budget contract from IATSE like one the company agreed to with the Directors Guild in 1984, but that IATSE had refused to discuss such a deal.

“Now,” Golan said, the union has “set up picket lines to interfere with our productions and to jeopardize the employment of hundreds of people working on our productions.

“If IATSE persists in its actions,” he warned, “Cannon will have no choice but to shoot its pictures elsewhere. This result would be devastating to the employment of the entire Hollywood community, including SAG, DGA, WGA members and all other talent.”

By the end of 1986, Cannon will have made 45 films for the year, according to company spokeswoman Priscilla McDonald. This includes 16 in Los Angeles among a total of 24 in the United States. She said the company planned to make “10 or more films” in Los Angeles next year but added that this was subject to change.

Crew Size

St. Johns said that the union was willing to make accommodations with Cannon on wages and crew size in order to get a contract. But he said there could be no compromise on its demand that Cannon pay into the Motion Picture Health and Welfare and Pension funds for each covered employee. He said that would amount to about a total of $1.30 per employee per hour worked. He said negotiations on a contract had foundered primarily on this issue.

Meanwhile, the union is preparing for final negotiations in January on a new contract to bring low-budget film and television production by major studios into IATSE jurisdiction.

In September, DiTolla and alliance President J. Nicholas Counter III announced that they had agreed in principle to establish a distinct, more economical contract for low-budget film and television productions. Both men said that such an agreement could dramatically increase the number of union jobs available to IATSE members.

They issued a joint statement saying they “agreed that with the radical changes in production and distribution of films and television programming currently taking place, a new, broad look at ‘staffing, costs, labor competition and new technology that is now a state-of-the art’ is necessary not only for the continued employment of veteran Hollywood workers but for the retaining of production in Hollywood.”

The statement was clearly a reference to the fact that in recent years more films are being made in other states, particularly in the South, or in Canada, where union rates are lower and the dollar value is higher.