Dodge faculty, alumna explain union vote to strike, their reactions

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) voted to authorize its president to call a strike if negotiations with the producers’ union fail. Photo courtesy of Unsplash. SAM ANDRUS, Photo Editor.

John Chichester, a professor in the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts who has worked for over 30 years in the film industry, recalled having a conversation two decades ago with a gaffer, who remarked that he could rarely stay awake on Saturdays after working long hours every week.

“Over his entire career, almost every week, he’s ended up staying all night long on Friday night to be able to shoot (night scenes),” said Chichester, who specializes in production design for films and television shows. “(The gaffer) said, ‘Here again, I find myself in some alley in downtown L.A., shooting another movie at three o’clock (in the morning).’”

This experience is just one of several that have been shared by film and television crew members who are part of a union called the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). The union has been in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) since July when a Basic Agreement contract was originally set to expire, which would have ended pandemic-based financial support for crew members. 

The contract also covers civil rights of union workers and offers some healthcare provisions like dental implants. The expiration date for these conditions was postponed indefinitely, however, since IATSE and the AMPTP have yet to discuss COVID-19 safety regulations for filming, including requiring crewmembers to get vaccinated.

During these negotiations, IATSE has expressed its concerns and frustrations when it comes to crew members working over 14 hours a day with low pay and without guaranteed meals or paid healthcare. Some members have even gotten into car accidents after working long hours.

“(Working long hours) is really dangerous, and it has become a lot more prevalent to have very, very long hours over the last couple of years,” Chichester said. 

Chichester explained that a typical Monday shift can span from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. As the end of the week nears, any night scenes that need to be shot outside are scheduled for after the sun sets, so crew members may have to work nocturnally from 6:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.

“You’ll be up all night long, and then you drive home,” Chichester said. “You get to sleep at about seven o’clock in the morning, and then you sleep all day long. Then, you’ll have Sunday to visit your family or whatever it is you’ve got to do, but Monday, you’re back at work at 6:30 a.m. … Essentially, you really don’t get a Saturday; you’re sleeping all day Saturday and not getting reimbursed for it. And that’s just been a reality of making pictures as long as they’ve been making movies on location and not the studio, because when you’re on a soundstage, you can just change the lighting, and it’s night. When you’re out in the real world, it’s not so easy to do that.”

In the negotiations, IATSE also explained how crew members with “new media'' contracts are getting paid in low amounts. These contracts were originally used to help streaming services like Netflix and Amazon hire union employees when the services were starting up and could not yet afford the union rates. Even though use of streaming services has skyrocketed in recent years, the crew members’ salaries have not been increased since 2019.

The negotiations were not going anywhere, though, especially after the AMPTP proposed to increase the number of hours that crew members would need to be eligible for a pension plan. This prompted a Sept. 21 decision from IATSE to hold a vote from Oct. 1-3 that would authorize the union’s president to call for a strike if the AMPTP was not willing to renegotiate.

Of the 59,478 registered members from 36 local unions who were eligible for voting, 53,411 (89.66%) came together to vote, and 52,706 (over 98%) voted to authorize the strike. Since the voting, the IATSE and AMPTP have reentered negotiations, but updates are not being provided for the time being, according to an email forwarded from Chichester to The Panther Oct. 8.

IATSE announced Oct. 13 that the nationwide strike would happen Monday if the negotiations did not pan out.

On Sept. 30, 120 members of the U.S. Congress and senators sent a joint letter to the AMPTP in support of the vote to strike. Solidarity soon also emerged from California state senators and assembly members in the form of a letter Oct. 4 — the same day the Director’s Guild of America released their statement of support. Celebrities like Danny DeVito, Jane Fonda, Kerry Washington and Mindy Kaling have also vocally endorsed the union crew members.

Austin Olivia Kendrick, an assistant dialogue editor at Nickelodeon Animation and current IATSE member, graduated from Chapman in 2020 with a degree in film production. She said for students enrolled in Dodge, working over 14 hours on a production with very little sleep has become a “badge of honor.”

“I would see friends in school just exhausted, running off energy drinks (and) not taking care of themselves, because it is the production over everything,” Kendrick said. “It’s trained into you to prep for the reality of a situation once you get into the film industry.”

While Kendrick currently works a nine to five shift at her Nickelodeon job, gets paid weekly, receives overtime and has a boss who can advocate for her, she is well aware of the frustrations expressed by other IATSE crewmembers who find themselves trapped in toxic work environments. 

Immediately after joining the union, Kendrick received multiple emails and postcards from the Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700 as well as joined a private Facebook group where members were kept up-to-date on ongoing negotiations.

“(My job) is a rarity; jobs like that don’t exist in the industry,” Kendrick said. “I was very lucky that I ended up here this early, … (but) I also feel almost survivor’s guilt. This is how it should be. It should be reasonable working hours with good pay and people who are advocating for your health and well-being. But I know so many people both in production and in post-production where that’s not the case. I got very lucky, and I feel like reflecting on that and acknowledging that only puts more of a fire under me to keep advocating for this strike and for bigger systemic change.”

Kendrick also learned of crew members’ experiences through the Instagram account @ia_stories, which was created in August to serve as a space where film and television crew members can anonymously share their experiences with others and network. As of Oct. 11, the account has posted over 1,000 crew stories and amassed over 151,000 followers.

Of the stories that Kendrick read, some of the ones that stood out to her spoke about crew members receiving threats about being replaced or getting into car accidents due to being on set so late. She said the written accounts that hit her the hardest had to do with crew members explaining their inability to see their families and vice versa. 

Kendrick summarized one particular story where a crew member had grown up never seeing their dad, since he was always at work in the film industry. The member confided that they had grown resentful of their father, but was even more saddened to realize they were inflicting the same neglect on their own kids.

“In the film industry, you don’t get to have a family; you don’t,” Kendrick said. “If you try, they’re never going to see you, (and) you’re never going to see them. And no matter what you do, no career should ask that of a person. It just shouldn’t.”

Hollywood’s last major strike that impacted production can be traced back to World War II, when the Confederation of Studio Unions clashed with IATSE, who at the time was pervasively influenced by the Chicago Mafia. This strike resulted in a burst of violence outside of the Warner Brothers studio in an event that later came to be known as “Hollywood’s Bloody Friday.” 

A possible IATSE strike threatens a more significant toll on Hollywood than the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, since the former would likely put a screeching halt to most production in the film industry, according to associate professor Travis Knox, who teaches producing in Dodge College.

During the WGA strike, which lasted for four months, the writers walked out after negotiations with the AMPTP did not work out, as the writers wanted a portion of the revenues from films and television shows that were accessible to computers and cell phones via the Internet.

“When the writers (went on) strike, we didn’t shut down production,” Knox said. “Everybody knew the WGA was going to strike, so they ramped up their script pipeline, they got everything ready to go, and they just shut (down). So, we didn’t develop anything for four months with WGA writers, but production didn’t come to any kind of a real halt.”

However, if the IATSE crew members were to strike this year, there would be a complete shutdown, according to Chichester. 

“If (the crew members) haven’t completely finished the film or television (production) — if they wouldn’t be able to complete it — it would be disastrous for the producer (and) for the studios with the streaming services, because they have all this money invested into making this happen, so they can get a return on their investment,” Chichester said. “None of that would be happening. They would have to just start airing things that they’ve already shown or that they’ve already shot but they haven’t actually aired yet.”

Chichester said that though a shutdown is not wanted by anyone in the industry, the conditions of the work environment have gotten to a point where crew members are willing to walk out on the things they love the most.

“An overwhelming number of members of the 13 union locals represented in these labor negotiations voted to authorize a strike — well over 90%,” Chichester said. “We will strike if the negotiations do not come to a satisfactory compromise.”

IATSE is currently putting together a fund for crew members in order to help them financially survive the strike, if one is called, according to Kendrick.