By Mary Hannington
Anyone that has worked on a film or a music video has attended a mandatory safety meeting. Most of us shuffle our feet and look bored – we’ve heard the speech before. Some Assistant Directors give better speeches than others and I heard one once that was particularly heartfelt and it did hold my attention, but it is not the norm. As someone who has worked as a director and a department head I am responsible for the safety of my crew and I DO take that seriously. However, my recent experience with the CSATF (Contract Services Administrative Trust Fund) that handles safety classes for IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) in LA has me questioning the use of initials and the validity of safety classes.
Some of the guys on the Detroit crews here go back generations to gritty grandfathers who were longshoreman or stagehands in Detroit''s numerous theatres. The man that served my studio's lighting package needs for decades had a grandfather who helped dynamite the stage wall of a theatre during a late 1800's protest over wages. This little stunt is one of the reasons that IATSE Local 38 was formed in Detroit and I imagine his grandfather would have either stormed out of the room hurling epithets or pulled out a pint of bourbon and a cigar had he been forced to listen to the advice proffered in the CSATF safety video.
Imagine my suggesting to one of these guys that they wear anti-slip appliqués on their shoes while in the production office. They'd think I was a lunatic!
Yet this is one of the "helpful" safety tips I was given.
In order to be placed on the industry experience roster (giving me hiring preferrence over non-roster members) of Local 800 in Los Angeles I am required to do a number of things, one of them being the attending of safety classes. I have argued with the union about this. Since being a member allows me to work anywhere in the country shouldn’t the union be a little less LA-centric and allow its members to take these classes someplace other than Los Angeles?
Answer: NO.
I have to plop down $1000 for a hotel and airfare to fly out to Los Angeles, rent a car to drive into Burbank to take this class and the required color eye test.
After shuffling back and forth from the Safety Class window to the Contract Services window, filling out forms, signing in and then having my picture taken I'm called for my eye test.
You can take a color eye test here. or test for deficiencies here. I scored a 0% deficiency on the latter. Typically these tests consist of a circle filled with colored dots that have within them a different colored set of dots that make up a number. The closer in tone or the more disrupted with other colors the harder the number is to distinguish. There are two problems that I see (no pun intended) with this requirement. One, if I couldn't distinguish colors I probably would have had a pretty hard time getting work as a designer in the first place. Two, the test I was given was SO basic that you’d have to have the worst color vision in the world NOT to be able to pick out the orange circles and squares amongst the green dots I was shown.
So at this point I’m starting to get pissed off.
Yeah, yeah I suppose it is important to weed out color blind Art Directors, but how many can there really be?
Next, I'm ushered into a room with walls full of safety harnesses and asked to watch a half hour safety video. The happy young woman explains to the three of us that we get to keep our books! Yay! That the test will be an open book test, that the video has the same information, but doesn’t follow the same order as the book and that in the future we will be paid $15.00 dollars an hour for any classes we take.
Whoop! I'm moving to Los Angeles where I can make $120/day taking classes!
WTF?
I just travelled 1,981 miles to Los Angeles to take an open book test? You couldn't have just mailed me the book and the test and let me mail it back? WHAT? I'm gonna somehow cheat?
Halfway through this useless piece of crap video I had out my checkbook and was paying the bills I hadn't gotten to before I left. This is the motion picture industry and I'm just down the street from mega-studios and the fucking safety video is fucking words on a fucking screen? Oh, they eventually threw in a few pictures. One of some knee pads, in case we didn't know what they looked like, and (are you kidding me?) some examples of sturdy shoes.
AND another of a bloody hand to reinforce the fact that if someone gets injured we should seek help!
This is safety for morons!
And the only time I actually crack a smile is when the video suggests you should surveil the office you are working in for any dangers. It reminds me of a certain employer, who to my delight, kept stumbling over the little step outside my office no matter how much safety tape and warning signs we put up.
And when they suggest we should consider putting anti-slip material on our shoes when working in an office environment?
I burst out laughing!
Okay, maybe this benefits the costume department folk that sometimes wear fashionable high heels on the job, but I'm all about sturdy shoes on a film job and it is either steel toed boots or a good running shoe for me and the same goes for most of my peeps.
The test is true or false and I crack the book once to make sure what PPE stands for (Personal Protection Equipment). IIPP is on the book's cover and it stands for Injury and Illness Protection Plan, which all the major studios have. I'm thinking someone added the word "Illness" at the last minute to make the initials more "copacetic".
So, I now have that important knowledge down pat and the next time I'm at Warner Bros. I’ll be sure to stop by and check theirs out!
The rest?
True or False: You should you twist and turn your body when lifting an object. Uh? Are you fucking kidding me?
It’s okay to cut up Asbestos on the job. Oh for crying out loud!
I get ONE answer wrong.
True or False: You need to bring your Safety Passport to the worksite. Note: this is a little 3 x 2" blue notebook with gold lettering and your picture in it just like a REAL passport. You get little gold stickers in it when you pass a course , which reminds me of the gold stars my piano teacher put in my notebook when I was EIGHT. I answer “True” (what would be the point of the stupid thing) and the answer is false… of course.
I spent $8000 dollars to join this union and pay a considerable amount of my paycheck to them every time I work a film and I dutifully pay my union dues.
This is complete bullshit!
I know CPR, I know the Heimlich maneuver, I once put a piece of an employee's thumb on ice, wrapped and elevated his hand and had him rushed to emergency. And you guys are completely wasting my time by telling me that I need to ask for help when carrying an object that totally blocks my fucking vision!
Training is good! Worker SAFETY is a great thing. This kind of nonsense is bureaucratic crap.
In ten or twenty years I plan on jumping off a cliff. In this way I won't be a burden to society when I no longer have the energy to work. I'm not suggesting that other useless people follow my path just consider it will you? In the meantime, I'll impart my knowledge to my brothers and sisters in IATSE Local 38 and other unions nationwide and teach them things like the importance of sturdy shoes. For everyone in Hollywood this will come courtesy of the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers), who run CSATTF (Contract Services Administration Training Trust Fund) and CSATF (Contract Services Administration Trust Fund).
It IS always the damn Producer's fault!
BTW, they do reimburse training expenses over at CSATF, but despite my numerous complaints about time and expenses not a soul there mentioned this. You can find this important knowledge on their website under "Other Information". Oh, and you have to request a reimbursement in advance. So it would be cool if one of the nice folk that work there would maybe have TOLD you that. I'll be back and I'm bringing my PPE!
