Four dates
Region 2 mails your ballot to your home address at 3 p.m.
If your ballot has not arrived, please call Region 2 at 212-264-0300 that day.
The Region must receive your ballot by close of business, and a postmark does not count, so please put it in the U.S. mail the day it arrives.
The NLRB counts the ballots at 26 Federal Plaza.
All four dates are set in the Decision and Direction of Election, pages 9 and 10. There is no mail on Veterans Day (Nov 11) or Thanksgiving (Nov 26).
Updates from Wes
- Sun, Oct 25PPI at MSG vote | NLRB has ordered our election. The first email I sent, with the Decision attached. I will post each one here after it goes out.
The documents
Every document here is posted in full, exactly as it was issued, and I would encourage you to read them yourself before relying on anyone's summary, including mine.
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NLRB decisionPDF · 11 pages
Region 2, Oct 20, 2026Decision and Direction of Election, Case 02-RD-383925
The order for this election. Page 2: the last PPI and Local 1212 agreement expired in 2015. Page 8: every party, 1212 included, agreed no contract stands in the way of a vote.
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Voting instructionsForm NLRB-4175
Issued with your ballotThe NLRB's instructions for voting by mail
Posted here in full once the Notice of Election issues, by November 4. The packet in your mailbox is the final word.
Posted when the Notice of Election issues -
Fact sheetPDF · 1 page
From Wes PellandOne page on what this vote is, what the NLRB found, and how to vote
This page on one sheet you can print or forward.
Final version coming -
The day afterPDF · 1 page
From Wes PellandIf NO wins: what happens next
What changes after a NO vote and what doesn't: booking, pay, and who you call with a problem.
Coming in early November -
Rate cardPDF · by position
From Wes PellandWhat today's deal pays, by position, next to the rest of the New York market
Your all-in day rate by position, next to seven other New York union contracts and PPI's own agreement for its other New York-area sports crews.
Final version coming -
NLRB certificationPDF · 1 page
Region 13, Jan 22, 2026PPI's Chicago technicians already voted
In January 2026, PPI's Chicago technicians voted 32 to 10 to end union representation. The NLRB certified the result on January 22, 2026, and the certification is posted here in full.
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Our own rulesPDF · 25 pages
Approved Mar 12, 2025IBEW Local 1212 Bylaws
Article V, Section 3: no agreement is signed until the affected members meet and vote on it, and each of them gets a copy within five days. Posted in full from the copy the Local files with the U.S. Department of Labor.
Vote NO, sign the envelope, mail it back
- Watch your mailbox from Monday, November 9. Region 2 mails the ballots to home addresses at 3 p.m. that day.
- Vote NO. The ballot asks one question, and NO ends 1212's representation of the technicians who work PPI shows at the Garden.
- Sign the outside of the return envelope. The Decision is explicit: a ballot that comes back in an unsigned envelope is void, and nobody opens it.
- Mail it the day it arrives. Use the mail. Ballots dropped off at the Region by hand have not been counted. It has to be received at Region 2 by close of business on Monday, November 30, and there is no mail on November 26.
The Region's own instructions come in the ballot packet and are the final word on how to mark and return it. I will post them here in full when the Notice of Election issues.
Your ballot is secret. No one from any side, including me, is entitled to ask how you voted, and nobody from this campaign will handle, collect or mail a ballot for anyone. If anyone offers to do that for you, please say no.
If your ballot has not arrived by Wednesday, November 18, call Region 2 that day at 212-264-0300.
Mailing date, the signed-envelope rule, the November 18 call and the November 30 deadline: Decision and Direction of Election, page 9. These steps are also on a short page of their own you can send to anyone.
The benefit money
Today 5.5% of your pay goes to the Entertainment Industry 401(k) Plan and 9.0% to the Industry Flex Plan, 14.5% in all, as our pay stubs show. Contributions to plans like those normally require a written agreement, so after a NO vote they would most likely stop.
While that is a real cost, the money is ours either way. What I would propose to PPI, together with those of us who work these shows, is one all-in rate for each position, with the benefit money in your check instead of in a plan. The starting point would be what you make today, wages, the 2% stipend and the contributions together, which comes to about 17% on top of today's hourly rate, and the market pays more than that.
The rate card, when posted, shows the same comparison for every position. The deal that has been let stand at PPI since 2015 is the lowest-paying one for this work in this market, and the same company pays its other New York-area sports crews more in every tier.
This is what we would ask PPI for, and I cannot promise what it will agree to. After a NO vote PPI can set rates on its own, and in all these years no one has shown me what agreement it pays us from today. What I can tell you is what the current deal pays and what others in this market are paid, and the rate card gives the source for each figure.
Questions people are asking
Who gets a ballot?
Anyone who worked two or more PPI events at the Garden between October 20, 2025 and October 20, 2026. That counts the freelancers who actually do this work, which is nearly everyone who does it. 1212 asked the Region to use a stricter formula that, by the Regional Director's own count, would have given a vote to only about 5 of the 63 people who work these shows. I argued that formula did not fit show-by-show work, and the Regional Director agreed and set the two-event rule.
Decision and Direction of Election, pages 6 and 9.
What contract is in place today?
As far as I know, there is no contract in force. The last agreement between PPI and Local 1212 expired on September 30, 2015, as the Regional Director found on page 2 of the Decision, and on page 8 the Decision records that all parties, 1212's lawyer included, stipulated that no contract bars this election. No one has ever shown me a contract for these events or asked me to vote on one, and I don't know what agreement PPI pays us from today, so I do not believe there is a contract in force for us to lose.
Decision and Direction of Election, pp. 2 and 8.
When did we last vote on a PPI contract?
I do not know, and I have never been offered one. Our bylaws say a proposed agreement goes to a shop meeting of the affected members at least 48 hours before a ratification ballot goes out, that the Business Manager has no authority to sign until the employees of that employer have ratified it, and that a copy of any agreement is delivered to the affected members within five days. If you were ever offered a vote on a PPI agreement, or sent a copy of one, I would like to hear when.
Local 1212 Bylaws (approved March 12, 2025), Art. V, Sec. 3(a), (c) and (d).
How long before we could vote on representation again?
Federal law bars another Board election in the same unit for twelve months after a valid election, for any union. In practice, rules inside the labor movement can stretch that, so I'd plan on about two years before we could bring in any union, if we ever wanted to. Either way, that would be a decision for us to make together.
29 U.S.C. 159(c)(3).
Who handles a problem with PPI after a NO vote?
No one has ever shown me a grievance and arbitration procedure for PPI work, because no one has ever shown me a contract for these events. If you have ever taken a PPI problem to 1212, I would like to hear how it went. After a NO vote you and the people you work beside keep the federal right to act together over pay and conditions, and New York State and City employment law applies to you as it does to anyone else.
National Labor Relations Act, Section 7.
Can anyone find out how I voted?
No. The Region mails the ballots, receives them and counts them, and nobody from any side is entitled to ask how you voted or to handle your ballot. If anyone asks whether you mailed it back marked a certain way, you do not owe them an answer.
Could this cost me work at MSG?
It is unlawful for an employer or a union to discriminate against you over how you vote or whether you campaign. If you campaign openly and are a member, the union can bring internal charges, as it has against me. What it cannot lawfully do is fine you or interfere with your work over it.
You don't even work PPI shows anymore. Why is your name on this?
That is true. The Decision records my last PPI dates on page 3, and I am not on the voter list. A decertification petition is filed on behalf of the technicians in the unit, and the Board treats the petitioner as the name on the paper rather than the party in interest, so the vote belongs to the people on the list. I filed because people I worked beside asked for the chance to vote, and the Region's decision gave them that chance.