Teamsters accused of Mickey Mouse antics on Hub film
By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter
Massachusetts’ image in Hollywood suffered a major setback yesterday after local Teamsters threatened to walk off the Boston movie set of “Game Plan” over a holiday wage dispute, sources told the Herald yesterday. 
 
Movie executives and leaders of Teamsters Local 25 – whose film unit has a notorious past that includes allegations of shaking down film producers in Boston – avoided a possible shutdown of the film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson after Walt Disney Co. agreed to pay union workers extra holiday wages for last week’s Veterans Day, sources close to the dispute say.
 
But the showdown, which involved tense talks between Disney and Teamsters officials yesterday, has left Disney with a bad taste in its mouth. One movie executive predicted it will harm the state’s film industry due to fears in Hollywood that new leaders at Local 25 want to reassert their past clout on movie sets. 
 
“They took a foolish approach,” said one studio executive of the Teamsters’ heavy-handed walk-out threat yesterday. 
 
Local 25 is being closely monitored by movie executives since Sean O’Brien became president of the union earlier this year. 
 
O’Brien’s father, Billy O’Brien, used to head the local’s controversial movie unit when it was the target of federal probes earlier this decade over allegations of shakedowns and physical threats against movie-set employees in Boston. 
 
Sean O’Brien, whose rise to the top of Local 25 has worried film-industry backers in Boston, has said he wants to work with Hollywood producers and has downplayed past Teamsters controversies. 
 
But O’Brien, who couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday, has made it clear he wants the Teamsters to have a major say in the making of movies in Massachusetts. 
 
Sources say O’Brien personally talked yesterday with Disney executives about the holiday wage dispute that threatened to stop filming of the made-in-Boston “Game Plan,” starringJohnson. 

credit: bostonherald