IATSE Film and TV Workers May Strike Starting Monday
This won't be good for anyone if they strike, but it looks like they may have to.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Charles Pulliam-Moore
Last week, the vast majority of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees' members voted in favor of authorizing a nationwide strike—a move that would immediately ground to a halt the productions of films and series across the country. Now, the trade union is making clear that it intends to follow through on its word.
This morning, IATSE president Matthew D. Loeb took to his Twitter account to announce that 60,000 members of the trade union will begin striking on Monday should talks continue to stall with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
In an official press release from the IATSE echoing Loeb's tweets, he expressed that while he and his colleagues are more than committed to continuing negotiations with the AMPTP, they felt it was necessary to give their potential strike a concrete date, given how the months of ongoing talks up to this point have still not led to any substantive agreements.
"However, the pace of bargaining doesn't reflect any sense of urgency," Loeb said. "Without an end date, we could keep talking forever. Our members deserve to have their basic needs addressed now."
The IATSE's demands of the AMPTP largely focus on higher minimum wage for workers across the board and well as a more generous allotment of downtime in between the start and stop times of production days. Additionally, the IATSE's members have been pushing for a more egalitarian classification for streaming productions, whose employees have typically been paid less than their counterparts working on traditional television productions. While it's currently unclear how the AMPTP might respond to the IATSE's escalation, the next steps seem quite simple to understand at this point.
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So your next binge may be delayed, or even canceled, because content creators don't want to give workers fair basic working conditions and wages.
Perhaps one of the good things that will come from this pandemic is that it seems to have empowered workers, even non-union ones to stand up for themselves.
A record number of workers are quitting their jobs, empowered by new leverage (msn.com)
Now that they have options. Add to that the recent Nobel Prize winner in economics that shows raising minimum wages don't, in themselves, impact unemployment rates - some market economies may have a correction moment.
The number of people changing professions is amazing. My great niece was an RN and finally had enough with the pandemic and quit. She took a couple of months off and ended up in a different profession at a lot more money better hours and she is not exposed to asswipes that refused to be vaccinated. Win win for her.
It's also been good for those who stayed in their profession. Because of the asswipes that refuse to be vaccinated leaving, it's opened funds to give some significant raises to employees.
It is if they actually give out raises. The other problems that still exist are the ungodly hours they are working and the still ongoing problem with the unvaccinated.
In the case here in the article management raises have been ballooning while workers wages have been shrinking. Also time between projects keeps shrinking as well so many of these workers are working long, long hours without getting anything like over-time or decent breaks.
I think with those unwilling to get vaccinated being forced out of the workforce is going to cause increases in hours worked. Then it falls on the individual if they want to stick around. A good employer, I think would offer a raise to those staying as incentive.