Industry & Labor

A threatened strike on major TV and film production was averted Saturday night, just hours before a midnight deadline.

In Midnight Mass, the arrival of a new priest upends the small, isolated fishing community of Crockett Island. It’s an original idea from writer/director Mike Flanagan, who made his name in the horror genre adapting Shirley Jackson, Henry James and multiple Stephen King opuses.

Work on TV and film sets might come to a standstill as soon as Monday if 60,000 crew members working nationwide go on strike.

IATSE isn’t working alone when it comes to pressing for better labor conditions.

One day after IATSE announced a tentative strike date of Oct. 18 against film and television studios, the union is offering members guidance on who would and wouldn’t be on strike, whether striking members can collect unemployment and if they risk losing their health care in the event of a work stoppage.

Hollywood is starting to brace for a strike that would essentially shut down the entire industry on Monday morning.

Unless an agreement is reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in the coming days, 60,000 IATSE film and TV workers will go on strike on Monday, Oct. 18, at 12:01 a.m. PDT.

IATSE is gearing up for a strike if contract talks with the AMPTP fail to produce a fair deal. “We are hoping for a deal but preparing for a strike,” a union source tells Deadline.

Hollywood’s workers are on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear whether they will be going on a picket line. Eight days ago, 98% of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees members who voted chose to authorize a strike if the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers doesn’t offer them a better deal.

When the industry came together last fall on a hard-fought agreement among multiple unions and the major studios on COVID safety protocols for production, some executives were wary of the precedent set by new limits on working hours.

In 2015, Cutter Ray Palacios, an actor from Texas, moved to Los Angeles. While auditioning for roles, he found himself working primarily as a production assistant (P.A.), a job that can entail transporting actors to and from set, moving equipment, sorting mail and running errands for producers or other members of the crew.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ management and IATSE-affiliated stagehands have reached a new three-year contract agreement, avoiding a potential strike that would have seen the union picket Hadestown and possibly other upcoming productions.