As Secretary-Treasurer, Abby Hilton is responsible for many duties, including the accurate recording of the meeting minutes of General Membership and Executive Board meetings. She attended all the IA training classes for the job, and also attended regular peer mentor meetings during her term to learn and apply best practices in serving the local. One major change she made was ensuring that spending was properly reported to the members, per Department of Labor federal laws and training provided by the IA. In the past, Executive Board approvals that took place over email between regular meetings were not being reported to the members properly. Now, all executive board spending between meetings is read aloud into the record and recorded in the minutes, which are available for members to access on the Member Dashboard. In addition, Abby served as Election Judge for last year’s Officer Elections (including the run-off election), She also organized credentials, accommodations, and other arrangements for our largest groups of delegates attending the two most recent IATSE District 7 annual conventions.
As Labor Delegate to the Georgia AFL-CIO, Paige Jarvis represents our union to the entire state. In the past, although Local 479 is one of the largest unions in Georgia, we had not been very involved in the labor movement. In the past 3 years, Paige Jarvis has tripled 479’s member involvement with this powerful organization, as all IATSE Locals in the United States are AFL-CIO affiliates. Our members are now attending AFL-CIO conventions, organizing classes, monthly CLC meetings, and events such as the annual Labor Day Picnic Celebration and Martin Luther King Day breakfast. Paige also revived a defunct Pride Committee and turned it around to create community power by organizing three of the largest Atlanta Pride participations in recent years. 479’s Pride Committee is a great example of IATSE International President Mattthew D. Loeb’s focus on the importance of committee activism as one of the five IATSE Pillars Of Success. Paige has led by example for other Pride committees around the country. Local 479 has quickly gained immense district and international recognition from IATSE, including being featured in the IA’s Bulletin magazine and hosting International IATSE Pride representatives who’ve traveled to Georgia from Canada and across the United States to attend. The committee’s yearly events bring hundreds of members together and raised more than $32,000 for the Atlanta nonprofit CHRIS180, one of the Southeast’s premiere mental health, child welfare and family service organization.
The Vice-President’s main role is to support the President and to chair meetings in the President’s absence. Vice-President Sara Riney has helped lead and guide the Executive Board. She has also completed nearly every IA officer training class that has been offered, including Officer Institute, to learn from the Education Department of our International organization. She has also studied "Essentials of Union Leadership", an IATSE series developed in partnership with the University of Wisconsin School for Workers. Sara serves as Chairperson of Local 479’s Women’s Committee and has modeled the committee after the International’s women’s group to encourage networking connections and to build an intentional community. She is also Chairperson of Local 479’s Scholarship Committee, and serves as a member of Constitution Committee, PRIDE Committee, and Local 479’s Political Action Committee. Sara communicates regularly with the IA’s Political-Legislative directors for our local’s Get-Out-The-Vote initiatives and attends Labor events with the Georgia AFL-CIO as well as the Atlanta North-Georgia Labor Council.