Film Incentive Creates Teamster Jobs

by Peter Jurich
photo by Chris Aliapoulios

teamsters-042410 Two years ago, Frank Morreale lost his job. His company went out of business and 500 people were out of work. “I loved my job,” he said, but future prospects looked slim. “Luckily, the film incentive came and… put us back to work.”
Because of the film tax incentive in Michigan, Morreale was able to get work with the production companies that filmed in the area. He started off as a driver and eventually moved his way up to a captain/crew leader. He makes sure everyone is “sticking to the game.”

Morreale is a member of the Teamsters, an international labor union aimed at keeping people like him in the workforce. The union negotiates for its workers’ contracts to ensure they are getting the wages and benefits they deserve. The Detroit branch, Local 337, has about 6,600 members, many of whom, like Morreale, are working on movie sets every day.

“They work hard, they get paid well, and they can pay their bills,” said Pat Dougherty, Teamsters 337 business agent. The incentive has “gotten a lot of people out of the hole and a lot of them can get back to square one.
“A job is only as long as it’s production, but in most cases, people make $40,000 plus. Most of my guys go from one production to the other.”
Because of this, Morreale was able to keep his house, which he was previously at risk of losing. “It’s lucrative, but it’s a very tough job,” he said. He works up to 80 hours a week during production.

The Teamsters’ role on movie sets is vital. They represent the drivers, caterers, wranglers, and animal trainers. Working together with IATSE (another of the major entertainment labor unions) on film sets Dougherty described as, “like hand-and-glove.”

“We move the equipment, we move the people, set up their base camps, and try to make it feel like home,” Dougherty said. “I tell the producers, ‘If there is anything that you need, we can get it for you.’”

Despite the naysayers who oppose the film incentive, Dougherty asserts that the incentive is helping, and that he is seeing more and more people go back to work. “I hear these reports about how the incentive doesn’t help, and the money goes back to L.A. … it’s really not true.”
The money not only goes into the pockets of local workers; it also stimulates the economy. For the movie, The Irishman (out later this year), for example, the production bought several old cars from a man in Jackson, Michigan. Morreale and his crew then transferred those cars to Detroit. Morreale said, “I bet you we buy over $2,000 worth of fuel daily from one little gas station.”

Morreale was in Frankfurt working on Youth In Revolt and said, “This pizza guy told us that between the crew staying there, he sold more pizza in that month than he would’ve sold during the peak of [tourist] season.”

While spending increases elsewhere, the Teamsters are keeping costs for the production low. Dougherty said, “The Teamsters will work with any production company to help them meet their budget.”

Production companies can turn to Michigan knowing that “six to eight experienced Teamsters can do the work of fifteen rookies. They know that nothing’s getting wrecked. They know, when they go home, that when they come back tomorrow, there’s going to be another base camp set up where they can perform their jobs.”

But what seems most important to both Dougherty and Morreale is that they are representing and promoting Michigan, proving that we’re not just ground zero for the economy, or a struggling auto industry. Dougherty said that before people visit, “they think that Detroit is the crack capital of the world. But when they come here, they find out that Detroit’s a beautiful city.

“We’re like ambassadors. You want to make a movie, you come to our state. We’re getting the reputation that we know exactly what we’re doing.