Negotiators for Hollywood’s two leading trade unions announced Friday night that they had reached a three-year deal with the leading studios, averting a near disaster for the movie business. The agreement is tentative at this point, needing to be approved by union members in a vote that is expected to take place this later week.
The International Alliance for Theater and Stage Employees (IATSE) and Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) represent nearly 60,000 employees from the core roles involved in film production. The new agreement provides significant benefits to members, with increases in overall compensation and minimum wage and certain limits to working hours. These are big wins for IATSE, whose workers were often required to work 6- or 7-day weeks during the height of production, with some work days lasting for 16 hours or longer.
The pace of negotiations picked up after IATSE president Mathew Loeb announced that its members had authorized a strike date of Monday, October 18th, if no agreement could be reached before that time. This solidarity provided additional clout to the union’s negotiators and motivated the studios to agree to the union’s key demands.
See also: Hollywood crews union reaches a deal with studios, averting a strike (Los Angeles Times)