Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
New IATSE Contract: Everything We Know
Variety: The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees is beginning to roll out more details of its tentative contract with major film and television studios to its members, as it looks to build support for a ratification vote.
I am incredibly glad that I read this article. It was good to learn more about what was happening within the strike. I knew some of what was going on but I was largely unaware of why the strike was being canceled. I do feel that some of the demands were met but largely I think that the producers scrambled to fix things before it screwed them over. I am thankful that wages are getting increased-- specifically in areas that are female-dominated and some working conditions will be addressed. What I do have problems with is things that easily have loopholes that producers can use. For example, the article mentioned how shows with big budgets could opt to have long hours and just pay the fines rather than giving their employees meal breaks. Or if the space being utilized is on a time crunch it is in the producers’ power to have the crew work longer hours. I am very interested to see how this affects the school of drama. Will administrators adapt our rules to fit in line with what the industry has evolved to do? Only time will tell.
This article was extremely thorough and clear about exactly the terms of the IATSE contract and its comparison to the demands of the workers. I’m not sure if the strike avoidance is a necessarily good or bad thing, but I think that many people were invested in the display and performance aspect that a strike would bring to the argument. Still, it seems that many of the demands were met in a more backhanded and subtle way than the workers were hoping for. There was a lot of “this will happen but…”. There was a lot of only addressing the issue in its most extreme form. That means like the article said that big companies still could afford to not give workers meal breaks or make them work Friday through Saturday. But most of the proposals seem to be a start and is the best contract to date. One thing that is particularly good is the raising of wages. Every industry in America struggles with the fact that their wages just aren’t livable as the cost of living goes up and wages do not, therefore it is great to see IATSE address this.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about the IATSE contract. I feel like on the surface it looks like a lot of progress has been made in terms of working towards better working conditions and pay for production workers, but at the same time when you really look into the contract there are so many loopholes you could find to “break the rules” outlined in the contract. In terms of turnaround times. The contract has specified a 10-hour turnaround time between shifts. This article states that most workers already have 10 hours, so there really isn’t much change there. Not to mention, those 10 hours include the commute to and from work, time to cook, time to clean, time to spend with your family, time to sleep, etc. There really remains not much time to do all of the other things you need to do to keep your life from falling apart outside of work. And I don’t understand how the contract can say that there will be 54-hour weekend rest periods, but also say that productions can still schedule six-day weeks where the weekend period is 32 hours. Moving to the meal penalties, I don’t think any change is happening there at all. Meal penalties only double after the first two hours of work without a meal break and that rarely happens even now. Also, the fact that productions could even start to simply budget meal penalties into their production budget and essentially not worry about the meal penalties at all is ridiculous to me. In my opinion, I think that the IATSE locals gave in a little too easily, I think there is still more work to be done, but I also understand that others may believe differently than me. Either way, I hope that they continue to fight over time for the work environment they deserve.
The fact that ticket buyers are waiting longer is not that surprising and all of the reasons given make sense. This can also probably be attributed to supply and demand considering that there are less tourists (about half) coming to the city and if people aren’t buying tickets further out in advance than other people don’t feel like they have to buy tickets super early. I also would bet that the trend of buying tickets later and later had already started because people have less jobs with vacation time and aren’t able to schedule time off way in advance. I know many people my age don’t plan too early. The article mentioned that lots of shows (or theaters) received both federal money and insurance. I didn't realize that they would have insurance that covered this scenario which made me wonder if insurance companies took a hit because so many organizations lost revenue and if they had insurance for it, the pandemic would be the perfect time to claim it.
I am glad that we were able to avoid a work stoppage and that the studios have realized that they were not going to get away with just standing their ground, that if they were not willing to negotiate strike a strike would happen. I have seen online strong reactions to the tentative agreement, mostly in opposition. From what I have seen, most of that opposition seems to be based on the idea that they should be asking for more because there is momentum now and all this attention. However, as someone who believes in the value of incremental change and working from within a system, I do not think that is the correct move. The initial list of demands were things that IATSE “had to have,” like they were going to shut down the industry if these things were not given. Workers were ready to walk out because that’s how important the initial list of demands were. To amend that list with new “have to haves” seems duplicitous because if IATSE really had to have these things they would have mentioned them earlier.
5 comments:
I am incredibly glad that I read this article. It was good to learn more about what was happening within the strike. I knew some of what was going on but I was largely unaware of why the strike was being canceled. I do feel that some of the demands were met but largely I think that the producers scrambled to fix things before it screwed them over. I am thankful that wages are getting increased-- specifically in areas that are female-dominated and some working conditions will be addressed. What I do have problems with is things that easily have loopholes that producers can use. For example, the article mentioned how shows with big budgets could opt to have long hours and just pay the fines rather than giving their employees meal breaks. Or if the space being utilized is on a time crunch it is in the producers’ power to have the crew work longer hours. I am very interested to see how this affects the school of drama. Will administrators adapt our rules to fit in line with what the industry has evolved to do? Only time will tell.
This article was extremely thorough and clear about exactly the terms of the IATSE contract and its comparison to the demands of the workers. I’m not sure if the strike avoidance is a necessarily good or bad thing, but I think that many people were invested in the display and performance aspect that a strike would bring to the argument. Still, it seems that many of the demands were met in a more backhanded and subtle way than the workers were hoping for. There was a lot of “this will happen but…”. There was a lot of only addressing the issue in its most extreme form. That means like the article said that big companies still could afford to not give workers meal breaks or make them work Friday through Saturday. But most of the proposals seem to be a start and is the best contract to date. One thing that is particularly good is the raising of wages. Every industry in America struggles with the fact that their wages just aren’t livable as the cost of living goes up and wages do not, therefore it is great to see IATSE address this.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about the IATSE contract. I feel like on the surface it looks like a lot of progress has been made in terms of working towards better working conditions and pay for production workers, but at the same time when you really look into the contract there are so many loopholes you could find to “break the rules” outlined in the contract. In terms of turnaround times. The contract has specified a 10-hour turnaround time between shifts. This article states that most workers already have 10 hours, so there really isn’t much change there. Not to mention, those 10 hours include the commute to and from work, time to cook, time to clean, time to spend with your family, time to sleep, etc. There really remains not much time to do all of the other things you need to do to keep your life from falling apart outside of work. And I don’t understand how the contract can say that there will be 54-hour weekend rest periods, but also say that productions can still schedule six-day weeks where the weekend period is 32 hours. Moving to the meal penalties, I don’t think any change is happening there at all. Meal penalties only double after the first two hours of work without a meal break and that rarely happens even now. Also, the fact that productions could even start to simply budget meal penalties into their production budget and essentially not worry about the meal penalties at all is ridiculous to me. In my opinion, I think that the IATSE locals gave in a little too easily, I think there is still more work to be done, but I also understand that others may believe differently than me. Either way, I hope that they continue to fight over time for the work environment they deserve.
The fact that ticket buyers are waiting longer is not that surprising and all of the reasons given make sense. This can also probably be attributed to supply and demand considering that there are less tourists (about half) coming to the city and if people aren’t buying tickets further out in advance than other people don’t feel like they have to buy tickets super early. I also would bet that the trend of buying tickets later and later had already started because people have less jobs with vacation time and aren’t able to schedule time off way in advance. I know many people my age don’t plan too early. The article mentioned that lots of shows (or theaters) received both federal money and insurance. I didn't realize that they would have insurance that covered this scenario which made me wonder if insurance companies took a hit because so many organizations lost revenue and if they had insurance for it, the pandemic would be the perfect time to claim it.
I am glad that we were able to avoid a work stoppage and that the studios have realized that they were not going to get away with just standing their ground, that if they were not willing to negotiate strike a strike would happen. I have seen online strong reactions to the tentative agreement, mostly in opposition. From what I have seen, most of that opposition seems to be based on the idea that they should be asking for more because there is momentum now and all this attention. However, as someone who believes in the value of incremental change and working from within a system, I do not think that is the correct move. The initial list of demands were things that IATSE “had to have,” like they were going to shut down the industry if these things were not given. Workers were ready to walk out because that’s how important the initial list of demands were. To amend that list with new “have to haves” seems duplicitous because if IATSE really had to have these things they would have mentioned them earlier.
Post a Comment