BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE 2021 HOLLYWOOD LABOR UNREST

In 2021, the Hollywood guild International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) negotiated a new contract with Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). IATSE had enjoyed a relatively peaceful labor existence in its 128 years. However, after negotiations with AMPTP stalled in 2021, IATSE held a vote to strike. The IATSE voters authorized a strike if negotiations did not produce an agreement. If IATSE had initiated a strike, productions would have effectively shut down. If Hollywood productions shut down, the industry would suffer millions in lost profits, employees would risk an unpaid strike, and viewers would likely see a decrease in content produced. IATSE and AMPTP eventually came to an agreement and avoided a strike in November 2021. But even with a new agreement some IATSE members remain unhappy. This Article analyzes the underlying issues which contributed to the stalled negotiations and subsequent 2021 labor unrest between IATSE and AMPTP. The main root cause of the labor unrest was a breakdown in negotiations between AMPTP and IATSE. This breakdown stems from three core underlying issues: (1) the working conditions for IATSE members; (2) the impact COVID-19 had on productions and the subsequent backlog of projects; and (3) new media pressures on producing large quantities of content for viewers forced to stay home, along with the lower payments IATSE members received on new media projects compared to traditional productions. Some of these issues existed independently from each other. However, this Article shows that these three underlying issues combined to create the labor unrest of 2021

The Industry and the Unions: An Overview

[Excerpt] This overview chapter provides a framework for the chapters that follow by broadly describing the arts, entertainment, and electronic media (AEEM) industry and the problems confronting it. The overview is presented in four sections focused on: first, the economic structure of the industry; second, unions and bargaining structure; third, the impact of technological changes; and fourth, historical responses on the part of unions and the labor relations system to technological change

Cultural Capital: Challenges to New York State’s Competitive Advantages in the Arts and Entertainment Industry

This is a report on the findings of the Cornell University ILR planning process conducted with support of a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to investigate trends in the arts and entertainment industry in New York State and assess industry stakeholders’ needs and demand for industry studies and applied research. Building on a track record of research and technical assistance to arts and entertainment organizations, Cornell ILR moved toward a long-term goal of establishing an arts and entertainment research center by forging alliances with faculty from other schools and departments in the university and by establishing an advisory committee of key players in the industry. The outcome of this planning process is a research agenda designed to serve the priority needs and interests of the arts and entertainment industry in New York State

Through the Stage Door, a Spotlight on \u27Backstage\u27 Work: Women Designers and Stagehands in Theatrical Production

The narrative within theatre history has been predominantly male, especially regarding those who work in technical production. When historians speak to women’s participation in theatre, the focus is often on performers, directors, and playwrights. Women designers are treated as anomalies, with a paucity of scholarship written about women stagehands. This thesis applies a social perspective to analyzing women’s experiences in theatrical production, attempting to dismantle the gendered hierarchy of theatrical labor. Rather than focusing on individual achievements, I grouped women as cohorts. The first cohort comprises pioneer women designers; I examine how women gained the skills necessary for United Scenic Artists Local 829 membership. The second cohort is made up of women stagehands who joined Locals One and Four of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, after the passage of Title VII. Finally, I investigated the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on women stagehands in Local Four. I pay keen attention to the struggles and hardships women have faced once in theatrical unions and draw on oral testimony collected from members of the second and third cohorts. Through this methodology, my research shows that women created alternative pathways to membership in the aforementioned unions. These alternatives include education and training programs, networks of women workers, and mastery of new technologies. In sum, I establish that women are not only capable designers and stagehands but have also been equal contributors to the rise and success of modern theatre. The goal of this endeavor is to promote the creation of a more equitable workplace for all theatrical workers

Industrial Stagecraft: Tooling and Cultural Production

The tooling of theatrical spectacle requires collaboration between stagecraft technicians and designers in an increasingly globalized and standardized manufacturing process. While hand skills are still used and remain useful, digital fabrication and other tools are now incorporated in labour processes in scenery manufacturing workshops, altering collaborative work in complex ways. This thesis is an inquiry into the epistemological role of software and digital fabrication tools in stagecraft practices and explores how the politics of craft labour intersect with material practices in media production labour. The technical aspects of the fabrication of theatrical spectacles and display environments, the way objects are used to think, and the ways tools mediate practices suggest how tacit knowledge is produced and reproduced in scenery manufacturing workshops that build theatrical sets and corporate display environments. The articles in this thesis draw from case study research of a community of craft technicians who work in the industry of theatrical display in southern Ontario, Canada. Each of the four articles focuses on different facets of this case study. The technician’s work in labour processes in scenery workshops is compared to repair and bricolage. Autonomy or self-determination over tasks in the workshop sites is explored in its material and embodied sense. The collaboration between the designer and scenic artist is mediated with digital media and this complicates established occupational roles. A case of collective organizing exemplifies the individualistic/collective dichotomy of craft labour. Using an inductive approach, the empirical research for this community case study was accomplished with participant observation and semistructured interviewing. My analysis of interview transcripts and interpretation of field data utilizes an autoethnographic methodology to reflect on and draw from my past work experience in theatre production labour as a builder and scenic artist. In this integrated article thesis, I consider how material practices constitute culture in media production labour

The Clear Picture on Clear Channel Communications, Inc.: A Corporate Profile

[Excerpt] This research was commissioned by the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) with the expressed purpose of assisting the organization and its affiliate unions – which represent some 500,000 media and related workers – in understanding, more fully, the changes taking place in the arts and entertainment industry. Specifically, this report examines the impact that Clear Channel Communications, with its dominant positions in radio, live entertainment and outdoor advertising, has had on the industry in general, and workers in particular

The Impact of Runaway Productions on Hollywood Labor Organizations

This study tries to show the impact of runaway productions on Hollywood labor unions. In the context of globalization, and also of US federalism used to lower labor standards, the unions’ response towards the producers has generally been weak despite some successes in recent years, notably of the screen writers in 2007. Among all the unionized in the motion picture industry, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and members of the Screen Actors’ Guild are some of the most vulnerable

Empire State\u27s Cultural Capital at Risk? Assessing Challenges to the Workforce and Educational Infrastructure of Arts and Entertainment in New York

New York State is a world center for the arts and entertainment industry and its vast and uniquely diversified workforce is its main competitive advantage. Commissioned by the New York Empire State Development Corporation, this report examines the strengths and the challenges facing this industry and its workforce in the state, providing an assessment of the education and training infrastructure that supports this vital industry, and identifying issues that offer a potential role for public and private policy

Approved Labor Provider Agreements: A Way Forward for Theatrical Labor Relations

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the relationship between theaters and local IATSE could be more successful with a different approach to the traditional bargaining agreement that currently exists between most theaters and their respective local IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) unions. These labor agreements, known as âApproved Labor Provider Agreementsâ can be an agreeable compromise for both the theater and local IATSE chapters.An âApproved Labor Provider Agreementâ allows smaller theaters to have the expertise and skills which their local IATSE crew can provide while still allowing the theater the flexibility to be operated in house by non-union members and thus allowing these theaters to continue to operate within their budgets. It also allows the Local IATSE to work with a theater that had been unavailable to them before because of budgetary restrictions. This is advantageous to smaller Locals, which need the work for its members. Through the process of both my experience of negotiating such a contract with the IATSE and my interview with Lea Asbell-Swanger, the Assistant Director, Center for the Performing Arts at Penn Stateâs Eisenhower Auditorium in University Park, PA, I was able to establish the advantage for the theater. Throughout the process of the contract negotiations with Allen Baysee and Joe Hartnett as well as the subsequent interviews I learned of the advantages for IATSE and the local stagehand union.M.S., Arts Administration -- Drexel University, 201