Hollywood Producers and Union Leaders Reach Deal They Hope Will Avert a Strike on Monday

“Solidarity is more than a word. It’s the way to get things done.”

A poster advocating union solidarity hangs this month from an office building in Burbank, California, housing IATSE Local 705.Chris Pizzello/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Union leaders and Hollywood producers have reached an agreement that they hope will avert a strike that was set to begin Monday. The tentative agreement provides a number of improvements in wages and benefits for the costume designers, editors, set builders, and other craftspeople who work behind the scenes to keep the entertainment industry running.   

International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) President Matthew Loeb celebrated the deal, saying in a statement, “We went toe to toe with some of the richest and most powerful entertainment and tech companies in the world, and we have now reached an agreement with the AMPTP that meets our members’ needs.” 

IATSE negotiated the deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and put out a summary of the agreement reached Saturday. It highlights various benefits including a guaranteed living wage, a maximum work day of 14 hours, and expanded weekend rest periods for the roughly 40,000 workers it covers. 

A summary of the benefits for IATSE members, according to a summary from the union.

IATSE

The union had been focused on improving wages for its lowest-paid members, getting real meal breaks, limiting work days, protecting weekends, and receiving a larger share of streaming revenue. Some members had been earning just above California’s $14 minimum wage while working 14-hour-plus days, including on Friday shoots that ran into Saturday mornings. The new deal includes a $20 minimum wage as well as limits on how long Friday shoots can go. 

Leaders from all 13 of the locals that would be impacted by the deal signed the summary. Separate agreements are now being worked out for IATSE members outside Hollywood. Still, this progress does not guarantee that a strike will be avoided. Union locals now need to vote to ratify the deal. As Alex Press of Jacobin has reported, the result will be determined through an electoral-college-like system where each local gets a set number of votes that then are allocated on a winner-take-all basis. 

Some members have posted on social media that the contract does not do enough to limit grueling days and other practices, but it’s not yet clear how widespread those views are. There has been criticism, for example, that the contract would allow for 14-hour workdays, not including time spent commuting. 

For months, negotiations between IATSE and AMPTP stalled. Then, earlier this month, IATSE members voted to authorize a strike if a deal could not be reached. In a sign of overwhelming support, nearly 90 percent of members cast votes and 98 percent of them voted to give union leaders the power to call a strike. On Wednesday, with negotiations still stalled, IATSE announced that the strike would begin Monday at 12:01 a.m. if producers didn’t reach an agreement. IATSE says it was the deadline that pushed producers to negotiate with more urgency. “Solidarity is more than a word,” Loeb said. “It’s the way to get things done.”

Beyond specific demands, the negotiations focused attention on the conditions faced by the “below the line” workers whose contributions to productions are often overlooked. Earlier this month, 120 members of Congress sent a letter to the AMPTP that urged the group to negotiate in good faith and “provide living wages, sustainable benefits, and reasonable rest periods between shifts and during the workday.” The Instagram account IATSE Stories has attracted more than 160,000 followers by cataloging members’ anonymous reports of poor working conditions.

The increased awareness could strengthen IATSE’s position when it negotiates its next contract in three years. “People not in the industry know what IATSE is,” Fae Weichsel, a member of IATSE Local 600 who works as a first assistant camera, explained. “That is huge. That wasn’t a thing even a month ago.”

Weichsel is leaning toward supporting the deal. They credited IATSE Stories with helping to change the perception that people in the film industry are only twenty-somethings doing their dream jobs. “Most of us take our jobs very, very seriously,” Weichsel said. “But it is also how we make our living. It’s how we pay our rents. It’s how we pay our bills.” 

IATSE had never voted to authorize a strike in its 128-year history. Its workers hold tremendous power when they are united since they can quickly shut down many productions by withholding their labor. Loeb, the IATSE president, now feels that isn’t necessary. It is now up to the workers he represents to decide whether they agree. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate