When a handful of Editors Guild members started writing postcards, knocking on doors, and building a website to mobilize voters, they weren’t just pitching in for the 2024 election — they were laying the groundwork for something bigger. The Guild’s new Political Engagement Committee, dedicated to informing and energizing Local 700 members around civic activism and pro-labor causes, grew out of last year’s campaign efforts.
The committee’s roots stretch back to last year’s IATSE District 2 convention, where Local 700 delegates sponsored a resolution urging all Locals to engaged their members to get active in democracy. From there, the group launched MPEG’s first foray into electoral politics with the “Labor to the Polls” campaign and quickly proved its impact: writing more than 1,100 postcards to active members and retirees in battleground states and districts, phone-banking, canvassing, and helping elect labor-friendly candidates to Congress.
Now, with the endorsement of the Board of Directors, the workgroup has upgraded its status to become a standing committee — with a budget, a mission, and a mandate to keep members civically engaged for the long haul.
Cinemontage sat down with the committee’s co-chairs — Board member A.J. Catoline and Elisa Cohen, both picture editors and IATSE delegates — to talk about their vision for the PEC.
Cinemontage: What is the Political Engagement Committee and what does it do?
A.J. Catoline: When we were at the quadrennial convention this summer, there was unanimous agreement and excitement that the IATSE needed to get more in the game politically — like fighting for a federal tax incentive to support film and TV production in the USA. Local 700 co-sponsored a resolution to commit the IATSE to this fight. And it struck me that we did not have any clear mechanism that would take on this work to engage members. I knew we needed to upgrade our workgroup to a committee, and I’m glad the Board agreed with our mission.
Elisa Cohen: The committee will be a year-round effort, not only at election time, to educate members on issues that are important to the union. We want members to focus on electing pro-labor candidates. For those members who are able, we’d like them to donate to the IATSE Political Action Committee (PAC). The PAC is fighting for us in Washington, lobbying for issues that will help union workers.
A.J. Catoline: And let’s be clear what the committee will not do. We will not get involved with any candidates and campaigns that are not vetted and endorsed by the IATSE. The PEC will not be independently endorsing candidates or issues, nor funding them.
Elisa Cohen: We definitely want to make sure our Local 700 members are registered to vote. We also want to make sure members know who are their representatives in their state legislature and in congress. We want to help them contact these reps. That’s important.
Cinemontage: What inspired you to spearhead first the workgroup and then the committee?
Elisa Cohen: What brings us together is that we have common values that involve our union, like fair work rules, and equity, better wages and healthcare. I think now is the time where we really need to come together and vocalize these issues to the candidates who are running to represent us.
A.J. Catoline: I think the Editors Guild needs to get back to some old-school trade unionism. When you get your people together, you amplify voices. Many of us in the Guild are like-minded to want change in the country, and our industry. Yet we haven’t been organized politically and I think the PEC can get us all working towards a common cause.
For example, the campaign to get federal tax credits for film and television production in the US is a goal that should resonate with all our members. Everybody cares about making more union jobs. I think finally we have something that people can rally around. As that old trade union slogan goes, the job you save might be your own.
Cinemontage: What can union members do to get involved?
Elisa Cohen: Working to get legislation passed that’s going to help us is really important, but it’s equally as important to be engaged in every issue you care about because it’s all connected. Whether it’s immigration, education, the environment — we need to know how our representatives are representing us. Who are the candidates that will push the envelope further to advance what benefits us? We need to support them.
We want to help members find out who represents them in their state legislature and in Congress. And to know how to contact them. Call your reps, let them know what you care about, whatever is important to you today. Maybe we really don’t believe that our voices matter. And I want our committee to make it clear that our voices do matter.
A.J. Catoline: I get frustrated about where this country is headed, you know, seeing the Trump administration being so anti-union. They eliminated collective bargaining rights for federal workers. During the campaign, he said striking workers should be fired. We’re seeing workers in L.A. rounded up off the streets, even American citizens, with little due process. We’ve seen voices in our media industry be silenced from threats to free speech. All that stuff makes me mad. Like many others, I feel like we in the midst of an authoritarian takeover in this country, and an anti-union push.
A way we can push back is with our union. I’m inspired to see that we’ve had a big interest in members wanting to get involved and help fight back. So far, nearly150 members have signed up to be volunteers. We want more members to join us and they can sign up to get involved and stay informed on the Guild website.
Cinemontage: What will be the PEC’s first project?
Elisa Cohen: There are issues right now that are really important, like the upcoming special election in California for Proposition 50. If it passes, it will allow us to have more pro-labor representatives in Congress. We need their votes to pass bills that would make union organizing easier, like the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act. Right now under Trump, we don’t have a functioning National Labor Relations Board. The current status quo is not working. That’s what Prop 50 is all about— getting a good result in the midterms next year. If we can get five more labor-friendly representatives in California, that could be the difference in what happens in the House next year.
Cinemontage: What would you say to people who think the Guild should stay out of politics?
Elisa Cohen: I want people to understand that politics is part of your daily life. Every cent that you spend is a political decision. I want our committee to give members the resources that help take the dirty out of politics and reframe it. We just are working towards positive change.
A.J. Catoline: I understand that some members are concerned that politics is divisive and we want to bring everyone together. But I like to remind people that the Editors Guild, the IATSE and every union didn’t just start as a social clubs. Back in the 1930s, the National Labor Relations Act was passed which codified into law workers’ right to organize and to collectively bargain. That right is under pressure like never before. Unions grew from politics. And they can be weakened by politics — like right-to-work laws. So there’s no such thing as separating trade unionism and politics. That’s paradoxical and doesn’t make sense to me.
Elisa Cohen: As union members, we need to get out there in numbers and show our faces. Our livelihoods have been ripped from us in this industry. We need to stand up for our issues — more jobs, better healthcare, better wages, work fairness and equality — so that politicians hear us and we get to come to the table. As Matt Loeb said at the convention, what we win at the bargaining table we can lose at the ballot box. The IATSE has about 170,000 members, most of them in the U.S. If we can mobilize that force and do it local-by-local, we would have a very loud voice and our elected officials would listen to us and we’d have power.
Ready to get involved? Your journey starts here.
