{"id":336771,"date":"2021-10-04T23:09:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/iatse-strike-amptp-union-labor-streaming-media"},"modified":"2021-10-04T23:09:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T23:09:00","slug":"iatse-entertainment-workers-are-on-the-verge-of-their-first-national-strike-workers-are-targeting-the-streaming-industry-which-has-profited-massively-during-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/04\/iatse-entertainment-workers-are-on-the-verge-of-their-first-national-strike-workers-are-targeting-the-streaming-industry-which-has-profited-massively-during-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"IATSE Entertainment Workers Are on the Verge of Their First National Strike – Workers are targeting the streaming industry, which has profited massively during the pandemic."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t\t\t

On Monday, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union representing behind-the-scenes entertainment workers, reported that members voted by a margin of 98 percent<\/a>\u2014with 90 percent turnout\u2014to authorize a strike. <\/p>\n

The near-unanimous vote follows a stall in contract negotiations between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over hours, pay and other issues, including provisions that would penalize employers from withholding lunch breaks. If the union ultimately goes on strike, up to 60,000 workers could walk off the job, which would represent the largest strike in IATSE history\u2014and their first nationwide strike in the union\u2019s 128-year history. The workers would also be challenging tech behemoths like Hulu, Amazon and Apple, which have profited from skyrocketing demand for internet streaming services during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Workers say that many behind-the-scenes craft jobs on television and movie sets are demanding and thankless. A set decorator at Disney, who spoke to In These Times<\/em> on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, described a job she had last year that required her to report for work for stretches of 12 days at a time for as long as 22 hours a day. When the pandemic brought production to a temporary halt, she says, she was grateful for the break. As production companies instituted Covid-19 guidelines and began to reopen, though, the pace of work only increased. \u201c[What] was always going through my head,\u201d she says, \u201cis just \u2018Wow, I remember when I had time, and I could sleep, and I could finish a book, or I could walk my dog, or I could see a friend or talk to my family on the phone even.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Her situation, while extreme, is not unique. In the last month, union and non-union entertainment workers have testified on social media to their grueling and abusive working conditions\u2014a demonstration of solidarity and a lesson for outsiders about the reality of work in an industry associated with luxury and wealth. <\/p>\n

\u201c[People] think it\u2019s the land of dreams and honey,\u201d says John Cant\u00fa, a trailer editor at Universal Pictures and a member of IATSE Local 700, the Motion Picture Editors Guild. \u201cNo, this is labor\u2026at the end of the day it is physical, hard work.\u201d As an editor, Cant\u00fa is spared the grueling physical demands that on-set workers face. But he supports IATSE as it ramps up towards a strike, noting the protections and benefits he says the union affords him in his job. \u201cBeing in the union, having reasonable hours, being properly compensated, competitively\u2014that's made me a better editor,\u201d says Cant\u00fa. \u201cI\u2019ve got more dignity, I take more pride in my work.\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition to provisions for lunch breaks and a minimum 10-hour \u201cturnaround\u201d time between shifts for union and non-union workers, IATSE is fighting for a heftier percentage of residuals from streaming services\u2014which would help fund union pensions and healthcare. Historically, producers have been required to pay both actors and the union a portion of the profits when a show or movie is re-run or released on a secondary media, like DVD. But as television and movies are increasingly relegated to streaming services, those payments have slowed. In the 2009 contract, IATSE agreed to \u201cgreater flexibility\u201d in terms of pay and residuals for \u201cnew media\u201d companies like Netflix, calling the ventures \u201cexploratory\u201d and, thus, riskier and potentially unprofitable. <\/p>\n

Today, the union argues, \u201cNew Media is now the industry standard and growing exponentially. This is not just about streaming companies\u2014among the most valuable corporations on the planet\u2014but also about the studios and networks where our members\u2019 labor facilitated their ability to compete and succeed. New media is now just media.\u201d <\/p>\n

AMPTP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

During the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for at-home entertainment accelerated, and the companies providing subscription access to television and movies have cashed in on that entertainment model. By the end of 2020, subscriptions to streaming services reached over 300 million in the United States alone\u2014a 32 percent increase from 2019. According to the Motion Picture Association, a trade organization, the so-called \u201chome entertainment\u201d market netted $30 billion in revenue in the United States. And the companies that own those services are among the most profitable in the world, with Amazon alone valued at $1.7 trillion. <\/p>\n

In a high-profile battle over the financial relationship between \u201cnew media\u201d and workers, actress Scarlett Johansson sued Disney in July after the company decided to release the film Black Widow<\/em>\nsimultaneously in theaters and on Disney+, the company\u2019s streaming platform. In September, Johansson reportedly won $40 million in an agreement with Disney. Whether IATSE members will also be able to win a fair share of the highly-profitable streaming ventures depends on the outcome of the ongoing negotiations\u2014and the possibility of a strike. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, that\u2019s the biggest philosophical issue of the strike,\u201d says Cant\u00fa. \u201cWhat are people entitled to?\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n

This post was originally published on In These Times<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tOn Monday, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union representing behind-the-scenes entertainment workers, reported that members voted by a margin of 98 percent\u2014with 90 percent turnout\u2014to authorize a strike.
\nThe …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336771"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365745,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336771\/revisions\/365745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}