The IATSE Executive Board Meetings

No studio visits for me most of this week. I'm camped in San Diego at the IATSE's national executive board meeting ...

These meetings are held multiple times per year. IA officers gather together and hear reports about IA labor activities across the U.S. and Canada. Labor reps (and there are a lot of reps here this week) get to catch up with what's going on in the continent-wide I.A. sphere, and hobnob with fellow union officers.

Okay, so it ain't Comic Con. But it's the best I can do.

Some of the reports on Monday centered on "poaching" by rival labor organizations intruding on IATSE turf. This kind of stuff goes on all the time, and the IA doesn't like it much (actually, not at ALL).

In the last couple of months, NABET (another union group that reps broadcast engineers, among other areas of work) has tried to push into IA jurisdiction in reality teevee. And of course, the WGAw made a recent run at repping animation writers on Sit Down, Shut Up, which also miffed the Mother International. (One piece of information I didn't know: the WGAe has represented a group of film/tape editors on the east coast for years ... and the IA still doesn't like it.)

The lesson in all this: Labor organizations don't willingly relinquish jurisdictions they're used to owning.

If there are any exceptions to this, I can't think of any.