Members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees have voted to ratify their two proposed bargaining agreements, both by a wider margin than the razor-thin vote held during the last contract cycle in 2021.
All locals covered by both the Hollywood Basic and Area Standards Agreements voted in favor of ratification, with overall votes standing at 85.9% in favor of the Hollywood Basic Agreement and 87.2% in favor of the Area Standards Agreement. In 2021, 50.4% of members voted to reject the Hollywood Basic Agreement, but it was still ratified through the union’s delegate voting system as eight of the 13 locals voted in favor of ratification.
The new contract will go into effect on Aug. 1.
“IATSE’s rank-and-file members have spoken, and their will is clear. Between significant wage increases in addition to several craft-specific adjustments, bolstered health/pension benefits with new funding mechanisms, improved safety provisions, critical protections preventing misuse of artificial intelligence from
displacing IATSE members and more,” IATSE president Matthew D. Loeb said Thursday.
He continued, “The gains secured in these contracts mark a significant step forward for America’s film and TV industry and its workers. This result shows our members agree, and now we must build on what these negotiations achieved.”
IATSE says it will hold meetings to educate members on the provisions in the contract and increase efforts to enforce it. While passing by a considerable margin, opponents of the contract, who came particularly from the Art Designers Guild, argued that the union did not achieve sufficient protections for its members against artificial intelligence-induced automation of their jobs.
Outside of AI, the gains negotiated in the contract included higher minimum rate increases — 7% in the first year, 4% in the second year and 3.5% in the third year — significant pay increases for shoot days that exceed 12-hour and 15-hour marks, a $700 million infusion into the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan and the implementation of safety officers on productions.
The ratification comes after three months of negotiations between IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with the industry still recovering from the WGA/SAG-AFTRA double strike that shut down productions for a combined 191 days from May to November 2023.
While productions have resumed in 2024, a study published this week by FilmLA showed that on-location film, TV and commercial shoots in Los Angeles in the second quarter were down 12% year-over-year despite the WGA strike shutting down scripted work in May of last year. Shoot days are also 33% below the five-year average.
That loss of employment opportunities, combined with the depletion of savings brought by the strikes last year, has put a significant portion of the IATSE membership in financial hardship. Members of the union who spoke to TheWrap over the last several months, including some who opposed the contract, said they expected the bargaining agreement to pass as workers are looking to get back to work.
Attention now turns to the ongoing discussions between the AMPTP and the Basic Crafts, which are set to have their last scheduled day of negotiations on Friday. While additional days of talks may be agreed to over the next two weeks, Hollywood Teamsters has informed the AMPTP that it will not agree to an extension of the July 31 expiration date of its current contract.
The AMPTP is also set to soon begin negotiations with The Animation Guild, which is organized under IATSE as Local 839.
