IATSE Pact Passes With Narrow Vote

The membership of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union voted on Nov. 15 to ratify two new contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the Sherman Oaks trade group representing producers, major studios and streaming services. 

The New York-based union said that turnout was high for the ratification vote on the Basic Agreement and the Area Standards Agreement – 72 percent of the 63,209 members eligible to vote cast ballots.

The vote was based on an electoral college style system in which locals are assigned delegates based on their size of memberships, the union explained in a release. Members vote within their local union and once a local reaches a majority vote, to either ratify or reject, all delegate votes are assigned to the majority result, the release said.

Out of 641 total delegate votes from the 36 local unions eligible to take part in the voting, the combined vote on both contracts was 359 (56 percent) to 282 (44 percent).

The popular vote of ballots cast by members was much narrower. A combined 50.3 percent voted “yes” and 49.7 percent voted “no” for both contracts. For the Basic Agreement, the popular vote came in at 49.6 percent “yes” to 50.4 percent “no.” On the Area Standards Agreement, the popular vote stands at 52 percent “yes” to 48 percent “no.”

Among the provisions voted on by IATSE members are: improved wages and working conditions for streaming shows; achievement of a living wage for the lowest-paid workers; retroactive wage increases of 3 percent annually; increased meal period penalties; daily rest periods of 10 hours without exclusions; weekend rest periods of 54 hours; the addition of the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday to the holiday schedule; and adoption of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The Basic Agreement covers more than 40,000 members in 13 West Coast local unions, and the Area Standards Agreement covers more than 20,000 members in 23 IATSE local unions elsewhere in the country.

“We met our objectives for this round of bargaining and built a strong foundation for future agreements,” IATSE International President Matthew Loeb said in a statement.