Take Action: Tell AMPTP to Give Film and Television Workers a Fair Deal

After months of negotiating successor contracts to the Producer-IATSE Basic Agreement, and the Theatrical and Television Motion Picture Area Standards Agreement, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents major film and television production companies, announced it does not intend to make any counteroffer to the IATSE’s most recent proposal.

Throughout the bargaining process, the AMPTP has failed to work with the union on addressing the most grievous problems in their workplaces, including:

• Excessively unsafe and harmful working hours.
• Unlivable wages for the lowest paid crafts.
• Consistent failure to provide reasonable rest during meal breaks, between workdays, and on weekends.
• Workers on certain “new media” streaming projects get paid less, even on productions with budgets that rival or exceed those of traditionally released blockbusters.

It is incomprehensible that the AMPTP, an ensemble that includes media mega-corporations collectively worth trillions of dollars, claims it cannot provide behind-the-scenes crews with basic human necessities like adequate sleep, meal breaks, and living wages. Worse, management does not appear to even recognize these core issues as problems that exist in the first place.

These issues are real for the workers in this industry, and change is long overdue. However, the explosion of streaming combined with the pandemic has elevated and aggravated working conditions, bringing 60,000 behind-the-scenes workers covered by these contracts to a breaking point. These workers risked their health and safety all year, working through the Pandemic to ensure that business emerged intact. Now, they cannot and will not accept a deal that leaves them with an unsustainable outcome. Click here to join IATSE in telling AMPTP to make a fair deal with film and television workers!