Experience

dooner has served in a number of Union leadership positions, ranging from Secretary to President to Associate National Executive Director. He served the ADG as an Organizer and Political Director before the membership selected him as the first elected Associate National Executive Director in 2016. 

Originally coming out of Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama, he has received Labor education from the National Labor College, the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, the Labor Center at LA Trade Tech, the American Arbitration Institute, and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, among many other programs. 

dooner participated in every Basic Agreement negotiation from 2006 through 2021 and has negotiated agreements with numerous other employers covering everything from set shops to sports broadcast agreements

dooner has served as a health plan trustee, and has held positions on several boards. He is currently a Director on the Board of Labor Community Services Los Angeles, where last year he was chosen to serve as Executive Director while they prepared for a change in leadership. During his time in that position he oversaw the upgrade of systems and equipment to streamline workflow with a focus on employee safety and wellbeing. This enabled a growth in production and distribution of food boxes to thousands per month, making sure working families and members of the community were able to put meals on their tables. 

In 2011, dooner was the founding chair of  the MPTF "Day at the" series of  fundraisers. Through this effort, on which he continues to work to this day, over $2 Million has been raised to fund MPTF assistance for workers in need. 

As Chairman of District 20 for the Fraternal Order of Eagles, representing LA from Santa Monica to Altadena, he was able to guide the donation of thousands of dollars of funds and goods to aid the victims of the recent wild fires. 

SERVICE TO THE MEMBERS

Nothing comes above the members and all else flows from that. 

We have many challenges ahead and we must rise to meet them. 

Contracts

Our employers continue to push back against our contracts. We must enforce and defend what we have while fighting like hell to make the gains we need for the future. The time to prepare for the 2027 Basic Agreement is right now. We must immediately ramp up our internal planning and information gathering so that we will be best prepared to make gains that  benefit all. It is also time to bring together everyone working in scene shops or broadcast to prepare some across the board approaches to negotiating these agreements, standardizing terms and conditions where it makes sense and will benefit the workers, lifting up those who are getting less and leveling the playing field. 

Runaway Production

Our Industry needs a national approach to dealing with the exodus of production for places like Eastern Europe and South Africa - where we cannot compete with the cheap labor costs and the employers don't seem to care about any drop in production quality. We must be an active participant at the Federal level in pushing for Congress to address the inequity that has resulted in so many members remaining without work over a year after the strikes ended. 

Incentives

At the state level, we must work to hold onto and improve state-based incentives while seeking to create a more level playing field so that all states can be economically viable for productions. I was fighting for incentives in California when almost no one else was. I led communications for the successful campaign that tripled that state's program in 2014.  I also participated in lobbying efforts in other states and territories, from Boston to Seattle and Baton Rouge to Santa Fe. 

Defending Our Crafts

We must endeavor to protect ourselves from the AI shaped anvil that is falling above our heads. Employers see this technology, much of which was created by stealing work product of others, as a pathway to smaller crews and faster production times. We must engage politically to enact legislation to protect artists. We cannot however behave as so many did when computers first entered our workplaces. It isn't enough to simply say "I won't use that." Under the contract and the law, the employers have a lot of rights when it comes to directing how work is performed. We must find ways to work with those non-generative tools that enhance our abilities and ease our workflow. With that said, we cannot simply roll over. We must fight the fight at every opportunity and through all available avenues, but also be prepared for industry altering technologies including ones that no one has even thought up yet.  

The Budget

This is a big one and it won't be easy. We must stop acting like we are still in peak tv. The industry has contracted and we have all felt the pain. Fewer members are finding work and, those that are, are finding less of it. We cannot budget like we will be bringing in lots of new members whose initiation payments will help balance the books. The ADG budget must be combed through and trimmed wherever possible. Programs that have no representational benefit for the members will need a second look to determine if they provide sufficient value to continue at their current funding level. This won't be easy and will certainly lead to everyone fighting to protect their favorite program. I'm being up front about this because, although it won't be popular, we simply cannot afford to continue to operate like we did when work was plentiful. You deserve the truth and this goes back to the first thing listed above - the members above all. 

Dues

It is also time to take a serious look at our dues structure. Currently it is based on a percentage of 13 weeks of Basic Agreement scale per quarter. Let's be honest - not many people are actually working 13 weeks per quarter and those that are probably are not doing it regularly. The days of July to May television production are all but gone and, for now, feature production just isn't happening here. Between, less work and shorter episode counts per season, members need a break and a more equitable distribution of the burden. Unlike other recent dues adjustments for which there was a failure to sufficiently project the impact, any changes that are proposed in this area must be given full and accurate review. Any projected drop in revenue must be offset elsewhere - something that didn't happen sufficiently when other "dues relief" was expanded in recent years.