Teamsters OK Pact With Hollywood Producers

Striking Teamsters drivers overwhelmingly approved a new contract with Hollywood producers Thursday night, ending a strike that began Oct. 3.

The 2,100 drivers voted 1,039 to 190 to accept the new pact.

But union members did not show as much enthusiasm for the agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers as the vote might indicate.

“It’s an outrageously bad contract, but it’s the best we can get,” said Earl Bush, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 399.

The Teamsters strike came as Hollywood production companies were hustling to launch an already-delayed new television season that was sidetracked when members of the Writers Guild of America struck producers for 154 days earlier this year.

No details of the new Teamsters agreement were announced. But producers had demanded that some drivers accept wage freezes and that others take pay cuts.

Studio representatives said the cuts were necessary to make the major studios competitive with non-union operators in Hollywood and out-of-state producers who pay non-union drivers less.

The producers also sought to revise overtime rules so that drivers who worked weekends within their 40-hour schedule would not be paid overtime, as they are now.

Earlier Thursday, studio electricians reluctantly agreed, 166 to 54, to end their strike against the producers.

“Although the ratification was by a 3-1 vote, it should not be assumed that the members were satisfied with the producers’ final offer,” said Russell Bartley, business agent for Local 40 of the Internation Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.