In a hotly contested race between two former Chicagoans resulting in the largest turnout in the history of any IATSE Local election, DP Steven Poster, ASC, solidly defeated DP Haskell Wexler, ASC, for the presidency of Local 600, the International Cinematographers Guild.
Poster won by a 57.6% to 42.4% margin.
Poster’s slate of candidates swept all of the national offices and most of the seats on the Local’s National Executive Board.
More than 2,400 ballots were cast in the election, representing about 42% of the eligible membership. That number represents the highest member participation for an IA election, both in terms of absolute numbers and percentage of membership.
National officers elected are Barry Wetcher, National VP; incumbent Rusty Burrell re-elected First National VP; two-time Academy Award winning cinematographer John Toll, ASC, Second National VP; Alan M. Gitlin, National secretary-treasurer; Bruce MacCallum, National Assistant Secretary-Treasurer; and Michael St. Hilaire, national Sergeant-at-Arms.
The new officers and members of the executive board will be sworn in at Local 600’s next National Executive Board meeting to be held in Los Angeles in June, and will serve three-year terms.
Also elected were delegates to the next IATSE Convention to be held in summer 2009, prior to negotiations for the next Hollywood Basic Agreement.
“I’m delighted the members voted overwhelmingly for our positive, proactive platform,” said President Poster. “We ran our campaign on issues, laying out exactly what we would do and the members responded by giving us a mandate.”
Poster said his proactive platform “pledged to fight for more jobs for our members, including the training needed to keep up with new technology, to rebuild Local 600’s respect in the industry and to strengthen our alliances with the International and the other IA locals that we bargain alongside. Now we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
