The Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700), will honor retired machinist, technician and union representative Joseph Aredas with its fellowship and service award on May 2 at a dinner at the Sheraton Universal Hotel. The fellowship and service award was established nine years ago by the guild to recognize an individual who embodies the values the guild holds most dear – professionalism, collaboration, mentorship, generosity of spirit and a commitment to the labor movement.
“Joe Aredas has been a significant force in the labor movement of the film industry for the whole of his career,” said Alan Heim, ACE, president of the Editors Guild. “He’s one of the few individuals who has sat on both sides of the negotiating table and therefore has developed — and maintained — an overriding sense of fairness. It is an absolute honor for the guild to be able to present him with this award.”
A native of Los Angeles, Aredas began his career in the entertainment industry in 1967 at the MGM machine shop as a cinetechnician designing and fabricating camera and editorial equipment as a member of IATSE Local 789. Due to a layoff at MGM after eight months, Aredas took a temporary job at Consolidated Film Industries (CFI) that ended up lasting 12 years.
In 1980, Aredas was appointed assistant business representative of IATSE Local 695, a position he held for seven years. Soon after, he returned to CFI as vice president of labor relations and human resources. In December 1997, he left CFI to assume the position of chief executive officer at the industry’s Contract Services Administration Trust Fund, which is jointly administered by the producers and the IATSE. From 1998 until his retirement in 2006, Aredas served as the international representative-in-charge of the IATSE West Coast office.
Aredas has served on the following boards and organizations: vice president, California Labor Federation; board of directors, Motion Picture Television Fund; board of directors, Motion Picture Editors Guild; board of directors and past president of Filipino American Service Group, Inc. (FASGI); board of directors Motion Picture Pension and Health Plans; board member, California Film Commission; past chairman of the Los Angeles Entertainment Industry Development Corporation (EIDC) and Los Angeles World Airports board of commissioners from 2005 to 2013. He currently serves as a vice president for the Regional Airport Improvement Corporation and is on the board of directors of Birdi & Associates, a software company located in Pasadena, Calif.
Previous recipients of the fellowship and service award include Donn Cambern, ACE; Dede Allen, ACE; IATSE international president emeritus Thomas Short; Carol Littleton, ACE; Don Hall and Donald O. Mitchell.
