As we get reports back from the 2022 D2 Convention, it’s exciting to hear about all the progress and connections being made. The IATSE Women’s Committee fundraiser raised more than $1,000 for Equal Rights (among other achievements), and Nora Meek, Co-chair of TAG’s Young Workers Committee, met with editors from Local 700 (all delegates), including veteran editor Bill Elias, learning more about the history and how-to’s of the IATSE.
Here Nora shares some of her experiences at D2:
Nora (left) met with members of Local 700 (from left): Leah Gunter, Shiran Amir, Bill Elias, Aziza Ngozi, and David White (closest to camera).
Bill is L700’s Sergeant-at-Arms and was celebrating his 40th year as a delegate at District 2 that year! He knew everything there was to know about Robert’s Rules, back to front, and could answer any question you had about parliamentary procedure.
He was really an open book! He talked at length about the way that resolutions are voted on at District 2, which is by voice vote, as all the new delegates had questions about that process. He elaborated on the different ways one can use Robert’s Rules to vote on changing the way votes are counted so that all delegates might have a more equal voice in the future.
D2 was a lot of fun this year because we saw so many new faces from 839 participating! The procedures can range from boring to silly to frustrating, but I think it’s a great window into how things work on the upper levels of the Union we belong to, and always gives great context to the decisions IATSE makes. For instance, a lot of new delegates were surprised by the emphasis IATSE put on the Stagecraft department and the fact that LiveNation was recently unionized. If you work in Los Angeles, you might think the Motion Picture and Television is the biggest group within IATSE, but it’s actually the Stagecraft locals that make up the majority of IATSE! We animators barely get to see what the IATSE members working on movie sets do, so live event and stagecraft workers can be even more mysterious—but they’re working everywhere alongside us, too!
We will continue to share stories and experiences from our District 2 Delegates.