By Fiona Wrench
(Abridged version printed in Strike the Stage, Edition #7, July 2025)
Capitalism in the US is degenerating: the US government already an imperialist institution since the beginning of the 20th century and a genocidal one long before that, is controlled more and more by a life-long outspoken racist surrounded by yes-men and “America first” fascists who have purged as many federal institutions as they can to hoard power in even fewer hands. Political assassinations, disregard for the capitalist justice system, mobilizations of the US military against civilians, blatant manipulation of the media, acts of war against other countries without the approval of Congress, increased surveillance of the US population, highly publicized deportations of immigrants without due process, inhumane detention centers, overseas concentration camps, neo-Nazis impersonating cops and ICE, crackdowns on activists agitating against Israel’s genocide of Palestine, frightening moves to erase trans people—all of this is the order of the day, and in fact all of it predates even Trump’s first presidency.
Practically all the capitalists in the live entertainment business support this. On the national scale, Live Nation gave $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration committee, essentially hoping this bribe will get the anti-trust lawsuit they’re dealing with after the merger with Ticketmaster off their back (source: ).1 Philip Anschutz regularly donates millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes—the Anschutz Corporation gave $75,000 to to the Republican Attorneys General Association only five days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.2 As far as Pittsburgh goes, Flyspace staffed and produced rallies for far-right political candidates like J.D. Vance and Dave McCormick during the 2024 election cycle and regularly produces Zionist events. MediaQuest and Three Rivers Entertainment and Production are both owned by conservative Christians and also produce right-wing events. IATSE Local 3 protects its Trump-loving high-seniority workers and sees no issue with staffing Trump’s rallies because hey, a paycheck is a paycheck! “You must be rich if you say no to that!”
Meanwhile, we get told raises “aren’t in the budget” by Flyspace HR—even though Flyspace keeps buying new stages and admits to the US chamber of commerce that its revenue has increased by millions every year since the pandemic. We work crazy hours, days as long as 16 hours straight or more, even sleeping in our cars to recover. We’re given short unpaid lunch breaks without being provided food, we work in extreme temperatures without hazard pay or proper accommodations, and we just get disrespected by people who act like we can’t do our job, whether that’s union cronies who degrade us for our low seniority or company managers and their “figure it out” attitude. The historic fight for the 8-hour work day and 40-hour work-week seem like a distant daydream.
Practically the entire activist left, from the “radicals” to shills for the Democratic Party, agree that unionizing is a good way for workers to fight against the increasingly reactionary ruling class and to improve conditions at our work. But we have to be clear about what kind of unionism we’re talking about, because bringing unorganized workers into IATSE or reforming it from the inside is no solution. It’s enough to look at a letter addressed to Trump in May of this year to know what IATSE’s politics are all about. The letter reads, “Dear President Trump, We appreciate and thank you for the support you have shown our industry.” It identifies IATSE as part of “a coalition comprised of creative industry unions and guilds (…); film, television, and streaming studios and independent production and distribution companies (…); and your Hollywood ambassadors.” In the letter they say they “strongly support” Trump’s proposal to cut corporate taxes on domestic manufacturing from 21% to 15% as part of a desperate plea to appease the movie studios so they keep making TV shows and movies in the US.3
The letter is signed by IATSE, the Screen Actors’ Guild, the Directors’ Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America; it’s also signed by the Motion Picture Association, the Producers’ Guild of America, and Producers United which all represent the movie studio executives. And what’s this about “Hollywood Ambassadors”? This is a term Trump made up to give to three of his sycophants: Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight, who he calls his “eyes and ears” in Hollywood, who for some reason have the right to be involved in communications like this.4 So we have an unholy fascist alliance between the state unions, the producers, and more of Trump’s yes-men.
How did we get here? Really knowing the history of organized labor and class struggle in our industry will give us clear lines of demarcation between right and wrong, what will work and what won’t, and who is on our side and who’s not.
IATSE ignores unskilled workers until they organize on their own
When IATSE (then NATSE) was founded in 1893, even then there was a division of skilled and unskilled labor in the theaters. Still three decades after the Theatrical Protective Union was founded, the union only represented “property men” and their assistants—something like house techs who have a full-time position at a venue today. But putting on one play meant relying on hundreds of laborers called “clearers,” similar to today’s stagehands. In 1908, clearers in New York City unionized on their own. A New York Times article from 1916 about one of their strikes gives no indication that the property men struck alongside the clearers; it only says that the clearers’ union, unlike IATSE, was not part of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and their strike had “no bearing” on Theatrical Protective Union No. 1 (today IATSE Local 1). The theaters stayed open, though at least one had a reduced schedule, and the Palace Elmer Rogers hired scabs to replace the striking clearers. An association of theater managers considered the clearers’ demand for $1.50 per show ($56 today) “exhorbitant,”5 but the property men had already won 50 cents for load in and out and $1 per show 20 years earlier ($2 in 1894 = $75 today).6
The Times has no article about a resolution to this strike, but we do know that the clearers’ union was absorbed into Local 1 in 1920.7 So we know that IATSE only included unskilled workers when those unskilled workers unionized on their own, and that there is still a division between extra hands and overhires on the one hand and the more privileged skilled workers with high seniority on the other today.
Infighting between crafts destroys working-class unity against capital
In 1921, the construction trades department in the AFL united against IATSE to drive stagehands out of the movie studios. At times, IATSE and the carpenters’ union sided together against the producers; at other times, they crossed each other’s picket lines. In 1924, the carpenters gave up jurisdiction of prop and set building to IATSE, which is still the case today. So we can see that, without correct politics, organizing narrow “craft unions” can turn into selfishly hoarding work for yourself and your favorite people (or family members) at the expense of others, instead of uniting against a common enemy (the capitalist class) for a common goal (political power for the working class).
The boss will use craft unionism to their advantage
In 1933 there was a massive strike of IATSE workers in the movie studios. The producers’ response was to use other unions as scabs, giving them jurisdiction of work formerly represented by IATSE—grip and “property” work was given to the carpenters’ union. IATSE’s numbers fell from 9000 down to 200. So we also know that the boss will use this kind of “craft unionism” to his advantage and entice unions to scab on each other.
Around this time, the Chicago Outfit was looking for new sources of revenue following the end of prohibition. IATSE suffered massive losses in numbers in the wake of the Great Depression. George E. Browne, business agent of IATSE Local 2 in Chicago in the 1920s, ran a kind of extortion racket, promising theater and night club owners no strikes and low wages for cash.8 In 1932, the same year that Capone was imprisoned, Browne became president of IATSE in an “uncontested” race (the mob sent death threats to everyone who ran against him). By taking a two percent “assessment” on all IATSE members’ paychecks, the mob was able to create a “defense fund” that helped them put down rebellions by IATSE locals that resisted mob rule. The reason propmakers and set decorators, grips, laborers, and set lighting electricians are all separate locals in LA is because they were once a single local that was split up by the International as punishment for rebelling against mob rule.8 So we know these narrow craft divisions can even be used by enemies within the union itself to divide workers.
Browne and co-conspirator Wilie Bioff took $50,000 from each major studio and $25,000 from smaller ones, again to keep wages low and prevent strikes. The mob and the movie studios practically worked together to drive other unions out of the movie business. The IBEW lost jurisdiction of electrical installations to IATSE. 6,000 workers in movie studios in various unions under the “Federated Motion Picture Crafts” (FPMC), which was allied with the more radical Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), struck for union recognition in 1937. In response, Bioff issued thousands of IATSE cards to scabs and sent armed thugs in from Chicago, breaking the FMPC strike.
Browne and Bioff were indicted in 1943 for racketeering. Browne snitched on the mob in court and “disappeared” while out on parole.9 Richard F. Walsh, vice president under Browne since 1934,10 became president and the deal remained the same: Walsh appointed Roy Brewer to manage Hollywood, and the studio execs put him on their payroll in exchange for low wages and a “no strike” clause in the contracts.
IATSE owes its monopoly over Hollywood labor to organized crime, strikebreaking, the blacklist and collusion with studio executives
There was another union forming in the studios at this time: the “Confederation of Studio Unions” (CSU). Though affiliated to the conservative AFL, the CSU was democratic and its members could call a strike at any time. In March 1945, 10,500 film workers in the CSU went on strike, picketing all the major studios. Walsh gave orders to IATSE members to cross their picket lines, claiming jurisdiction over some of the strikers’ work. Thousands of IATSE workers did the right thing and refused to scab on the CSU, risking heavy fines and expulsion from the IA. 1,500 of IATSE workers participated in a rebel meeting to support the CSU against Walsh. But the official IA stance remained the same. In October, Chicago goons, scabs and the county police together violently attacked workers on the picket line: they drove cars into the striking workers, sprayed them with fire hoses and threw tear gas bombs into the crowd.
The strike ended with no clear outcome. Jurisdictional fights between the CSU and IATSE continued and the IATSE members who refused to cross the CSU’s picket lines were forbidden from returning to work. An “arbitration” committee staffed by AFL officials that was formed in the aftermath of the strike awarded several jurisdictional disputes to IATSE. In 1946, Brewer colluded with producers in hushed-up meetings to force out the trades still represented by the CSU in the movies and provided IATSE scabs to take their work. The CSU picketed and fought back courageously, bombarding buses carrying scabbing workers, driven in by the Teamsters, with bricks, fighting IATSE scabs and the police with clubs, bottles and their bare fists.
Brewer tried to absorb a key union local in the CSU that handled film negatives to break the strike. He and his goons showed up at the local’s office to find dozens of men waiting for them with baseball bats. They left, then the cops came back to arrest 38 of the workers inside. Then five IATSE members’ homes were bombed. CSU President Herb Sorrell told a meeting of 7,000 striking CSU workers that the studios were doing the bombings, but the damage was done. The press denounced the CSU, calling them “terrorists,” Governor Earl Warren denounced the “violence,” then top CSU leaders were all indicted on criminal conspiracy charges. In all, 1300 strikers were arrested. After Taft-Hartley was passed in 1947 to purge the unions of any radical influence, the studios teamed up with Congress, Brewer and conservative union officials in the AFL and the Screen Actors Guild such as Ronald Reagan to blacklist as many “reds” in the CSU as possible.11 They were able to do this in part because after 1935, when FDR signed the National Labor Relations Act, all these unions were registered with the federal government and abided by its labor laws. To this day, IATSE still has a “blacklist” clause in article one of its constitution forbidding membership to anyone part of an organization whose goal is to overthrow the US government or the US constitution (in other words, the Communist Party).8, 12
So: we know the federal, state and local governments will team up with the boss, the cops, the press and even other unions against a popular, militant union. We know that IATSE got its monopoly over Hollywood labor from organized crime, the blacklist, strike-breaking and the consent of the movie studios: not because of any particular organizing talent. But we also know it’s possible that significant numbers of IATSE workers will rebel against their own union before crossing a picket line. Lastly, we know we need good politics, based on history, class struggle, solidarity and industrial unionism.
1 Ticket News, “Live Nation Donated $500,000 to Trump Inaugural Committee.” April 2024 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250423214150/https://www.ticketnews.com/2025/04/live-nation-donated-500000-to-trump-inauguration-committee/)
2 them, “Coachella’s Owner is Still Making Political Donations to Republican Causes.” July 2022 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250220033445/https://www.them.us/story/coachella-owner-republican-political-donations)
3 https://web.archive.org/web/20250603171418/https://iatse.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/20250512-Letter-to-President-Trump-re-Film-and-Television-Industry-Reconciliation-Priorities_FINAL.pdf
4 CNN, “Trump makes Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone ‘Special Ambassadors’ to Hollywood.” Jan 2025.(https://web.archive.org/web/20250117041549/https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/16/entertainment/trump-jon-voight-mel-gibson-sylvester-stallone-ambassadors-hollywood/)
5 New York Times, “Stage Prop Shifters Quit; “Clearers” Strike for $1.50 a performance.” September 1916. (https://www.nytimes.com/1916/09/12/archives/stage-prop-shifters-quit-clearers-strike-for-150-for-each.html) Note: New York Times account required to access
6 IATSE Hollywood Locals. (Hosted by Local 33 as “History of IATSE – YouTube” https://web.archive.org/web/20230417105534/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHFpcmwDB1Q)
7 Hart, Eric, “A Brief History of IATSE.” September 2010. (https://web.archive.org/web/20250429084208/https://www.props.eric-hart.com/features/a-brief-history-of-iatse/)
8 IATSE Local 728, “The War for Warner Brothers.” (https://web.archive.org/web/20241209220156/https://www.iatse728.org/about-us/history/the-war-for-warner-brothers)
8 IATSE Local 728, “The War for Warner Brothers.” (https://web.archive.org/web/20241209220156/https://www.iatse728.org/about-us/history/the-war-for-warner-brothers)
9 See: Wikipedia, “George E. Brown” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Browne)
10 IATSE Local 4, “A Short History of Stage Employees Local No. 4.” April 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20250419022913/https://www.iatselocal4.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=116737&page=History
11 See: Wikipedia, “Roy Brewer” (https://web.archive.org/web/20250216153404/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Brewer)
12 IATSE International Constitution and Bylaws (2017) (https://web.archive.org/web/20250531234349/https://aegwebprod.blob.core.windows.net/content/promo-west/IATSE-Constitution-NHQ.PDF)
