A coalition of Hollywood unions at the bottom came together Sunday on the eve of their final contract negotiations. They threatened to launch a historic strike against the Alliance of Film and Television Producers if their demands were not met. Such a work stoppage would follow two strikes in 2023 by writers and industry actors that have crippled the entertainment industry and left it limping into the new year.
“I hope they will be attentive along the way to the AMPTP,” IATSE » Vice President Michael Miller announced from the stage to a crowd of about a thousand people at Woodley Park in Encino. (Nearly a thousand others watched a livestream online.) He then invoked a slogan repeated throughout the event: “Nothing moves without the crew.”
For the first time since 1988, the Hollywood Basic Crafts group, which includes Teamsters IBEW Local 399, Local 40, LiUNA! OPCMIA Local 724, OPCMIA Local 755 and UA Local 78 — and the IATSE crew union are joining this year to negotiate their health and retirement benefits with Hollywood trade group AMPTP, which represents studios and streamers. These talks begin on Monday.
The “Many Trades, One Fight” rally primarily served as an opportunity for members to express solidarity and put each other forward. The so-called “above the line” unions SAG-AFTRA and WGA made strong shows of force by holding up signs to express their gratitude. (Teamster Cooperation was the key in the WGA's production shutdown strategy at the start of its shutdown.) WGA West Vice President Michele Mulroney drew applause when she acknowledged the support of the team who “made us supported throughout our own long and arduous struggle” and noted that “without all of you, our words would only languish on the page.
The speech by the head of the DGA, Russell Hollander, provoked a much more moderate reaction. The Directors Guild, which unlike SAG-AFTRA and the WGA had little visible presence in Woodley Park, was seen by many people in Hollywood. work The movement was deemed too quick to acquiesce in 2023, when the WGA strike was already underway and SAG-AFTRA was on the verge of its own shutdown, and sparked new resentment within the union for having recovered the gains from standard negotiations after the end of the strikes.
The biggest reactions came from other union leaders, including when California Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer Lorena Gonzalez issued a “Fuck around and discover” call-and-response and when the president of Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Yvonne Wheeler exclaimed, “AMPTP, hear us loud and clear: These workers may be working below the poverty line, but that doesn't mean their wages and salaries social benefits should be close to the poverty line.
A dog dressed in solidarity at the “Many Crafts, One Fight” rally in the San Fernando Valley on March 3, 2024
Hollywood Teamsters Director Lindsay Dougherty, who served as secular MC for the event, ticked off key demands regarding rest, safety and compensation, then promised that “we will strike if we have to.” . Sean O'Brien, the national president of the Teamsters, gave perhaps the sharpest speech of the day, repeatedly calling entertainment companies a “white-collar crime syndicate.” Like others, he sought to reformulate the idea that the crew did not have, as he put it, “the courage to fight” after being out of work for so long. last year. He observed, regarding the AMPTP, “it is time to make them realize that if they thought they had a fight last summer, they cannot even predict what they have now”, explaining that “we are desperate – and being desperate is great. This means that we do not care about the consequences of our actions.
IATSE President Matt Loeb, who followed O'Brien to the podium, was succinct in his speech: “The studios can afford to give us more,” so he called on the crowd to “take our go “.
Rank-and-file unions have been open about the challenges their benefit plans face in the wake of the 2023 strikes, which have significantly limited employment opportunities for crew members. During the work stoppages, plan funding took a hit, while measures taken to keep members afloat during strikes – like offering COBRA for free, helping to supplement health care eligibility hours and allowing withdrawals of the PAI for financial difficulties – also had harmful consequences.
Labor's priorities in these negotiations will be to increase pension accrual rates and secure new pay-as-you-go funding in the schemes. In a statement in January, Miller, vice president of IATSE, said: “It is important that our unions are on the same page as we collaboratively negotiate the plans, not only because the lasting benefits are a common priority of our members, but also because recent difficulties have brought the teams together behind the scenes in a historic way.
Following the joint benefits negotiations, IATSE will negotiate its Basic Agreement (covering West Coast locals) and Regional Standards Agreement (applying to locals outside of the New York regions and Los Angeles) before these two contracts expire on July 31. Teamsters Local 399 will tackle its craft-specific issues in negotiations expected to begin in June.
The rally participants were not yet sure whether a new strike would actually take place, but seemed prepared to endure it if necessary. “What we're asking for is really simple: to be able to afford to live in Los Angeles where we work,” says Robert Morris, a transit driver and member of Local 399. Mike Flores, a member of Local 80 'IATSE, observed that sentiment is now or never for better protections, pointing out that job opportunities dried up even before last year's strikes and have not normalized since, and that progress in 'AI are on everyone's minds. : “Things are about to change, we all know that.”