by James Delhauer
Communication has changed drastically in recent years. Though the internet age had already seen an acceleration in this field, the COVID-19 pandemic forced an exponential leap forward as social distancing requirements and remote contact became necessary parts of day-to-day life. Though life has more or less returned to normal following the pandemic, many of the innovations that resulted from it have remained. Video conferencing, event streaming, and distant participation are all here to stay. That is where groups like the Local 695 Stream Team have made their mark, continuing to innovate on developments brought about by lockdown.
When the pandemic hit, labor unions across the country had just as much of a responsibility to regularly meet with their members and keep them informed despite distancing requirements. Though not unheard of beforehand, remote membership meetings went from being more of a novelty to an absolute necessity. Local 695 hosted its first remote membership meeting in the spring of 2020 and, like most at the time, took advantage of the Zoom video conferencing platform to do it. This worked well, but as the pandemic gradually lessened and normal in-person events resumed, there was a desire to “return to normal.” Many felt that the social and community aspects of General Membership Meetings had been lost in a remote environment. At the same time, remote meetings had increased accessibility for many members. Attendance had increased dramatically since their implementation. Thus, a hybrid format meeting—where members could attend either in person or via a remote platform—was necessary.
This was a more difficult demand than it might initially seem on the surface. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has strict guidelines on how unions must conduct their General Membership Meetings and, in July of 2022, IATSE International President Matthew Loeb sent a memorandum to all Locals on how hybrid meetings needed to be implemented to be compliant with labor law. It outlined how all members, whether in person, or remote, had to be able to participate equally in all meeting business. This meant that remote participants needed to be able to see what was taking place in person, while in-person participants needed to be able to see everyone on Zoom. All remote participants would be required to keep their cameras on at all times and take steps to ensure the meeting remained private from nonunion family members. Most importantly, members needed to understand that participating in membership meetings while at work is a violation of federal laws.
These stringent rules, particularly regarding equal participation and the ability for all parties to see one another, necessitated careful planning. Many Locals, both in and outside of the IATSE, viewed them as prohibitive or impossible to implement. In essence, they meant that every membership meeting would need to become a full-on production.
But production is what we do.
It started with several multi-hour meetings and phone conversations between Local 695 President Jillian Arnold and me, where we both mapped out potential workflows. Both of us had come up in broadcast television environments, so the restrictions in place were a challenge we were dead set on overcoming. Once we had a general idea, we set about building our team.
For the video component of the meeting, we tapped Holley Video, a boutique video consultation company that crews many Local 600 and 695 members and that is owned by Local 600 & 695 dual card member Zak Holley. His team specializes in remote solutions, and they helped pioneer several social-distancing protocols that were essential to live-broadcast productions during the pandemic. Having provided live remote services on everything from award shows such as The Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys to competition shows like The Voice, Dancing with the Stars, and American Idol, they were a natural choice. Holley Video would come in and provide a four-camera setup that would be integrated into a live switcher, which would then be integrated into a Zoom meeting so that all remote participants would be provided with a live feed of the membership meeting, complete with real-time camera cutting to whomever was speaking at any given moment. They would also provide two 55-inch televisions, each of which would be connected to a computer that was logged into the meeting. This would allow in-person members to view the Zoom gallery, regardless of where they were sitting in the venue.
For audio, we approached Bill Kaplan of On Tap TV. Bill is a Live Broadcast Sound Mixer who has been a member of Local 695 for more than twenty years and is best known for his work on more than five hundred episodes of The Late Late Show with James Corden. Each speaker on the Local 695 dais would have their own microphone and a floor mic would be provided for in-person members of the audience to use when asking a question. These lines would all be taken into a mixing console, which would then be integrated into the Holley Video team’s host system for the membership meeting. The microphones in the room would allow remote participants to hear what was being said in person, while the speakers would allow in-person participants to be heard on Zoom. Bill would be assisted by Oscar Alva, a member of Local 695’s Y-16A Training program, who would receive on-the-job training while participating in union activity.
For administrative purposes, Local 695 Director of Education (then Senior Systems Manager) Casey Weiss and I would facilitate the Zoom meeting itself. This would involve confirming membership status and admitting those participating online, as well as working with the Local’s then Sergeant-at-Arms, Chris Howland, to ensure members on Zoom were complying with the requirements set forth by President Loeb’s memorandum and the NLRB.
After weeks of planning and preparation, Local 695 held its first hybrid membership meeting on July 16, 2022. While I have not been able to confirm that we were the first IA Local to do so, we were certainly among the first. The initial Stream Team consisted of Zak Holley, Local 695 member Tristen Poliseno, Bill Kaplan, and Oscar Alva. The meeting was a success and, with the concept proven, we all began devising ways of improving the workflow for next time.
The real challenge came in January of 2023 when Local 695 held a vote to amend its Constitution & Bylaws. Legally, such a vote requires an anonymous balloting system, and any electronic ballot requires a level of integrity verification not possible on the Zoom platform. This meant that a third-party online balloting service would be necessary. What’s more, we needed to ensure that only members in attendance participated in the vote, meaning that we couldn’t send out voting credentials prior to when the vote opened in the middle of the meeting. After much research and several pitches from companies that could not meet our needs, Local 695 enlisted the services of Survey and Ballot Systems. Theirs was the only service we were confident could meet the precise timing needs of our meeting.
During the meeting, all members who were participating at that moment, regardless of whether they were in person or remote, were emailed a unique login credential so that they could cast their votes on the new amendments.
I cannot stress how stressful this process was, as a failure to conduct the vote or an improper voting procedure would violate our Local’s existing Constitution & Bylaws, which set forth that amendments must be voted on after being read at two consecutive membership meetings. If members didn’t receive their credential emails or there was some irregularity with the process, it would have been a real problem.
But the vote went off without a hitch. Once again, I cannot confirm that Local 695 was the first union to conduct an NLRB-compliant vote in a hybrid format, but we were certainly among the very first.
I also cannot praise Casey Weiss enough for taking charge of administering the voting process and working with Direct Vote to ensure everything went smoothly. She has since gone onto advise the IATSE and other Locals on this process so that they can emulate our workflow.
In the two years since we began doing hybrid meetings, the Stream Team has refined the process tremendously. The group has grown to include Local 695 members Cameron Broadbent, Garret Vander Leek, and Brandon Boldroff on the video side and Patrick Simon and Rylan Sedivy on the audio side. I’d like to make special mention of Local 695 Mixers Steve Weiss and David Cook, who have both stepped in to mix our meetings when Bill Kaplan has not been available.
The Stream Team has even gone onto support other Local unions, including IATSE Locals 44, 705, 706, and 728, as well as Teamsters 399. In March of 2023, the Hollywood entertainment unions held a joint rally in Woodley Park in advance of the 2024 negotiations with the AMPTP. With members across the country, the IATSE enlisted the Stream Team to livestream the entire event straight to YouTube. This ended up becoming the largest “hybrid meeting” imaginable for the team, as more than two thousand members of the entertainment guilds turned up in person and more than six thousand joined in online. Following negotiations, the group was again tasked with facilitating communications for the IATSE, conducting a multi-Local membership meeting where leadership from all thirteen Hollywood Locals and the IATSE West Coast Office directly addressed members on the new terms and conditions of their bargained contract.
I am immensely proud of this group and the role that I have had the privilege to play within it. It has pioneered solutions to very modern problems and helped expand both accessibility and transparency of the union for its members. But more importantly than that, I can’t recall a time I have ever worked with a more generous or more professional crew. Every single person involved is the sort of person you’re lucky to know in your life. So, if you need remote streaming solutions for your membership meetings or live events, I wholeheartedly recommend you contact Holley Video and On Tap TV. They are the Stream Team.