2019 Summer Teamster Local 399 Newsreel Topics Include:

  • Understanding Our CA Film & TV Tax Incentives

  • Teamster Privilege Program: Member Benefits & Discounts

  • 2019 Leo T. Reed Scholarship Winners

  • Member Spotlight: Rose Falcon Retiring

  • 2019 General Membership Survey Results

  • Get Your Health in Gear with Norm & Debbie Compton

  • Ride or Die with “Mayans M.C.”

  • Q&A with Secretary-Treasurer Steve Dayan

  • 399 Retiree Reunion Dinner

  • 28th Annual Ralph Clare Golf Tournament

Click here or on the image above to read a digital copy of the most recent Local 399 Newsreel

2019 Summer Newsreel: Introduction by Secretary-Treasurer Steve Dayan

Greetings Sisters and Brothers,

The topic of this issue of our Newsletter is “Stronger Together.”  Solidarity is the core principle of the Labor Movement, and without it we are lost. We need to support each other and help out a Brother or Sister if they are unclear what to do on the job or if they are struggling with an employment issue. We are family and in order to remain strong and continue to move ahead, we all need to stick together. As has been said time and again, together we bargain, divided we beg. To that end, you will see many articles in this Newsreel that focus on Member engagement through the many classes we now offer, social events, scholarship opportunities and so much more.

Rose Falcon, who has been serving this Membership for 40 years and 5 months retired at the end of June. While the entire staff and Membership are happy for Rose, we are all sad to see her go. Thank you to all the Members who’ve been sharing their experiences with Rose. She’s always been there with a smile, information, advice or a reassuring hug. Please refer to the Member Spotlight article on Rose Falcon in this issue for a more in-depth look at her years of service.

We have been hosting many educational classes for our Members this past quarter. In addition to the Location Manager classes that are regularly scheduled, we’ve held a Shop Steward Training, Hours of Service classes with the CHP, Bobcat, Forklift and two Water Truck training classes, just to name just a few. For those considering retirement, we’ve held retirement seminars with MPI and had MPI attended our General Membership Meeting in April to answer Member questions.

We also hosted our 28th Annual Ralph Clare Golf Tournament, 5th Annual Car & Motorcycle Show with the Basic Crafts and we will be hosting our Retiree dinner at the Castaways this Fall. We’ll also be hosting our New Member Orientation class, a “Black Book” class and we will be rolling out our Coordinator/Captain class this fall.

We are close to finishing the contractual language changes to our three major contracts with the AMPTP. We should have the new printed agreements available to the Membership in August or September. We concluded negotiations for our Music Video agreement and are in the process of negotiating agreements with Universal Studios and Warner Brothers on behalf of DOT Administrators at those facilities. It is our intention to include DOT administrators in the “Black Book” during our next round of negotiations with the AMPTP. We’re also beginning negotiations on behalf of the CSATF Administrative staff. If you’re going into CSATF, please tell those people you support them becoming 399 Members. We ratified the PRG agreement and those Drivers are now 399 strong. Lastly, we were able to extend and ratify the Omega agreement and it looks likely that another vendor has purchased Omega and our Members will continue to work for Omega at their new location.

Our bi-annual survey results are outlined in this Newsreel. We had an increase of more than 300 Members participate in this year’s survey. I appreciate those of you who took the time to let us know what’s working and what isn’t working for you. I go through every comment to see what I can do to address Membership concerns.

Also, in this Newsreel, is an article on how our California Film & Tax Credit program works. In it, we lay out how companies qualify for credits and what the next steps are for expanding and preserving the program. Some of our Members have asked why it seems to have slowed down during the second quarter of this year. Part of the slowdown has to do with the allocations that take place in the Tax Credit program during the year. As a result, we really didn’t have much of a Pilot season this year. Many New Media productions are shooting fewer episodes and aren’t shooting the 22-episode seasons the Networks tend to produce. However, we are getting busier and fully expect to see an increase in employment over the summer.

We also have a great article on the qualified tax credit production of “Mayans MC.” The article highlights Transportation, Casting and Locations from the perspective of the Department Heads.

I’m proud to announce our Leo T. Reed scholarship recipients for 2019. I hope you’ll take the time to read some of the comments these very deserving students wrote about their parents being Union Members and what belonging to the Teamsters has meant to these winning students and their families. Congratulations to all of the 2019 scholarship recipients!

Lastly, I’d like to remind you to take the time to download the Teamster 399 Mobile App if you haven’t already. So far, approximately 1,000 Members are using the app.

On behalf of the staff of Local 399, I’d like to wish you all a very busy summer production season!