Members of Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399 have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a pair of contracts with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, thus averting a threatened strike. Earlier this month, Lindsay Dougherty, the local’s principal officer, threatened to take “a commercial break” if the AICP didn’t offer a fair contract. “If we are provoked,” she said, “we will strike.”
The new three-year contract covering drivers, wranglers, animal handlers/trainers and hyphenated drivers was approved by a margin of 94.12%, while the contract covering location scouts and managers was approved by a margin of 96.9%. The two agreements, reached last week, cover about 500 members who work regularly in commercials, though more than 1,000 Local 399 members have worked at least one-day in the last year under the pacts.
“This contract fight has set a strong tone as we prepare for bargaining with the AMPTP next year,” Dougherty said Friday. “Teamsters don’t back down and are always ready to fight. We are proud of these two units for fighting alongside one another and for raising the Industry standards and expectations for all.”
See the memorandum of agreement for the drivers here and the location managers here.
“I want to take a moment to thank all of our members in commercials for standing together to achieve one of the best AICP contracts our Local has ever seen,” Joshua Staheli, Local 399’s vice president and chief negotiator for the contracts, told his members. “This is because our members stood together. You made your priorities known, you participated in our quarterly Commercial meetings, you rallied on Commercial sets during our contract campaign, and you gave us the leverage of being willing to call for a strike if needed.”
According to the union, the new pacts include:
- Minimum wage increases of 6%, 4% & 4% throughout the contract, however some groups saw wage increases of up to 20%
- Elimination of the Class B & C rate bringing all drivers to at least the Class A rate
- Hyphenated drivers went from a $5 to a $13/hour bump in their wage rate
- Increased overtime compensation
- Increased kit rentals
- Penalty if employers fail to give employees notification of call time in a timely manner so as not to impact their rest as well as increased rest periods overall
- Preservation of all medical and retirement benefits
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