Industry & Labor

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.

An overwhelming majority of film and TV workers have given the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees permission to strike if the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers doesn’t offer them a better deal.

Earlier this week, union members representing more than 60,000 film and TV workers gave the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees permission to call for a strike if the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers doesn’t offer them a better deal.

With Daniel Craig back for his fifth and final outing as 007 in EON’s 25th Bond movie, No Time to Die‘s Oscar-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren describes his ambitious work in a new episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Behind the Screen.

It’s typical for Hollywood’s labor unions to support for each other during labor disputes, but the support for IATSE during its current contract dispute with film and TV producers goes beyond the usual labor solidarity.

Standing together to win Motion Picture and Television Contracts

Some 60,000 members of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees received ballots on Friday morning asking them to authorize the first nationwide strike in the union’s history.

More than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate and independent Bernie Sanders have signed a letter urging the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to negotiate a fair contract with IATSE, saying, “We are united in our belief in the importance of livable wages, sustainable benefits, and reasonable rest periods between shifts and during the workday” – three of the union’s core demands.

In 2006, Haskell Wexler made a documentary about brutally long hours on film sets entitled “Who Needs Sleep?” The issue had become a flashpoint years earlier, when Brent Hershman died in a car crash after working a 19-hour day on the set of “Pleasantville.”