IATSE Strike Discussion Thread | Deal ratified

[Plain Old Tele]

Just now, RobrtmanAStarWarsReference said:

What's the reasoning for the pushback?

Dubious about some of the details and in some cases thinking we need to achieve more in some areas. 

[XXR vs XXR]

 

Even if some members are pushing back, this will still get a 90%+ approval rating when the vote comes. 

[Plain Old Tele]

Why don’t we all hold off until it actually happens? At a minimum I’d like to hear details from my local and our executive director, Cathy Repola. She’s awesome, I trust her to give it to us straight. 
 

edit: it’s very possible that the negative comments are from people who aren’t super familiar with the process and where we were at, in terms of specific wants that were being negotiated. There were many worthwhile things that simply weren’t in the works and I suspect they didn’t end up in the final agreement. 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Plain Old Tele

[HouseOfTheSun]

23 minutes ago, VenomXXR said:

 

Even if some members are pushing back, this will still get a 90%+ approval rating when the vote comes. 

The people adamant about voting no are the hardliners who wanted to get all of their demand not understanding what a negotiation is. Also probably mostly privileged people who can afford a strike. 

[Plain Old Tele]

9 minutes ago, HouseOfTheSun said:

Also probably mostly privileged people who can afford a strike. 

I very much doubt this. 

[keysersoze123]

31 minutes ago, Plain Old Tele said:

Why don’t we all hold off until it actually happens? At a minimum I’d like to hear details from my local and our executive director, Cathy Ripola. She’s awesome, I trust her to give it to us straight. 
 

edit: it’s very possible that the negative comments are from people who aren’t super familiar with the process and where we were at, in terms of specific wants that were being negotiated. There were many worthwhile things that simply weren’t in the works and I suspect they didn’t end up in the final agreement. 

 

I saw 2 concerns raised at IATSE sub-reddit. One around 10 hour turnaround. They want 12. Other was around 3% increase. They want 5%. Thought is with universal support for IATSE this is the best time to get their pound of flesh. 

 

That said majority could still go with the contract considering strike is no joke. Let us hope you hear good things from your local ED. 

[Plain Old Tele]

6 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

 

I saw 2 concerns raised at IATSE sub-reddit. One around 10 hour turnaround. They want 12. Other was around 3% increase. They want 5%. Thought is with universal support for IATSE this is the best time to get their pound of flesh. 

 

That said majority could still go with the contract considering strike is no joke. Let us hope you hear good things from your local ED. 

None of those things had a chance in hell of happening (given the town hall meetings I was present for in 2018 and this time).

 

edit: slightly more clarification. From what I’ve seen during the last few contracts, when you get a better percentage, it’s fractions of a percent. Like, instead of a 2.5% raise we get 3%. Or instead of 3%+2.5%+2.5% (across 3 years), we get 3%+2.75%+3%. The thought that we would get nearly double — along with our other demands — seems….. exceedingly unrealistic.

 

12 hr turnaround is something the actors have gotten. Some IATSE people are at 10 hrs, others at 9, some (I think?) may even be still at 8 hr. 10 hr across the board is pretty decent (12 hr would obv be better but doesn’t seem likely).

 

The weekend guarantees are better than they were. 54 hr weekend with a 2 AM latest wrap time means an 8 AM Monday call. That could be even better but again, I’m not sure how feasible that was given the other gains across the board.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Plain Old Tele

[Porthos]

8 minutes ago, keysersoze123 said:

 

I saw 2 concerns raised at IATSE sub-reddit. One around 10 hour turnaround. They want 12. Other was around 3% increase. They want 5%. Thought is with universal support for IATSE this is the best time to get their pound of flesh. 

 

That said majority could still go with the contract considering strike is no joke. Let us hope you hear good things from your local ED. 

 

Gonna try to be delicate with my comments here as this IS Tele's (and about 59,999+ other folks) livelihood.  But this is exactly what I was thinking about when I made my comment a few hours ago about how sometimes agreements get voted down when negotiations don't get enough to satisfy some folks when they're massively pissed off. 

 

That some folks are already voicing concerns about the 10 hour turnaround isn't a surprise as I remember seeing commentary about wanting a 12 hour turnaround earlier today.

 

[[[EDIT::: Just saw Tele's comment about how the 12 hour turnaround had no hope in hell of happening — which is gonna be part of the calculus as folks digest the negotiated deal against their own wants]]]

 

Still, as Tele said, really should wait and see how some this starts to get received as folks talk to their local reps.

 

(also ignoring commentary on social media, unless one is really certain about the source, is probably... a somewhat wise move given how social media can be.. unrepresentative at times)

Edited October 17, 2021 by Porthos

[keysersoze123]

Comments are like average weekly work hours are 40 for most professions. With 12 hour days, its still 60 hours a week. Isn't that a fair deal. On Pay rise, Inflation what we are seeing(definitely not transitory) and 3% wont cut it. I wonder what is the new meal penality. If its like 9.95 from 7.95, its pointless. I hope its substantial. Also comments around "Living wages" are vague. I hope details are not bad. 

[Plain Old Tele]

Like I said earlier, Cathy Repola, the exec dir of the editor’s guild, is hugely popular within our guild and she’s known as a very straight shooter. In 2018 she was sounding the alarm about a lot of this stuff (to the point where our guild voted against the contract but were overridden by the other locals). I’m sure we’ll be getting another email from her with more details, as well as how feasible some of these other demands were. At our last town meeting (pre-strike authorization), she spent over 3 hours afterwards taking questions from members. Time and again, when people raised solid good things to ask her, she would say it’s not that we don’t deserve them but they were simply not in the package of what we were negotiating for because we needed to prioritize what to fight for (from our guild’s perspective, largely turnaround, streaming, and shoring up our health & pension plan).

 

So these folks demanding more: sure, we deserve it. But that unfortunately doesn’t mean we’ll get all of our wants satisfied. Other guilds obviously have other concerns too — I can’t really speak to those details other than what I read online. 
 

edit: from my (somewhat privileged) position, the % wage raise isn’t key, we editors make good rates, generally speaking. Employers paying more into health & pension IS a big deal. Getting streamers to pay into that as well, plus bringing their rates more in line with the studios, that’s a big deal too. I do hope the lower-end wage IATSE members (writers’ assistants, script coordinators, script supervisors, and others) do get better than 3%. Presumably that’s what “living wage” means but we need to see details.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Plain Old Tele

[Plain Old Tele]

Shit, some of this stuff doesn’t sound so good. 

[ThomasNicole]

If it doesn't pass, a new deadline to start a strike will be decided to restart the negotiations?

 

And also, how much % it needed to be officially approved?

 

Anyway seems it won't be a problem, if they reach an agreement is clear the industry doesn't want a strike. If it doesn't pass now and restart the whole thing, i'm sure an agreement will be reached again. Like i said in one of the many threads this was discussed, the industry can't deal with this right now, COVID doesn't even end yet.

 

So far, good seeing this partially solved, i hope most people is feeling better about their work conditions.

Edited October 17, 2021 by ThomasNicole

[Ryan Reynolds]

why is it so hard to get working conditions that already exist in UK when so many productions shoot there ?

[Plain Old Tele]

@Eric Atreides can you update the title to be more accurate? “Deal reached, waiting ratification” or something along those lines.

[filmlover]

It's good to see that a deal was reached, but this also goes to show that something like the WGA strike of the late 2000s is unlikely to ever happen again (at worst a strike would last for a week or two, not several months like that did). Another WGA strike was also avoided at the last minute a few years back. The way the world works today in general is completely different from back then due to the rise/influence of social media.

[HouseOfTheSun]

3 hours ago, Plain Old Tele said:

I very much doubt this. 

Contrary to what seems like popular believe striking is not a favorable outcome to the people striking. If a good deal is presented and there are those that are insistent that people who can not afford it do it anyway, it comes from a position of privilege that others do not have. 
 

a safety net, people they can rely on, coming from a family of money…something. 

[SchumacherFTW]

1 hour ago, Ryan Reynolds said:

why is it so hard to get working conditions that already exist in UK when so many productions shoot there ?

The UK is very heavily focused on unions, they wield a lot of power in all professions. 

[Plain Old Tele]

5 minutes ago, HouseOfTheSun said:

Contrary to what seems like popular believe striking is not a favorable outcome to the people striking. If a good deal is presented and there are those that are insistent that people who can not afford it do it anyway, it comes from a position of privilege that others do not have. 
 

a safety net, people they can rely on, coming from a family of money…something. 

The assumption is that it’s a good deal… which tbh we don’t know yet. My relief at the news seems a little premature now. Frankly if a couple of things I’ve been hearing are true, I might vote NO to ratify. 

[eddyxx]

So disaster averted? Too bad, I wanted to see Spidey shatter the January record.

[EmpireCity]

It's a good deal.  Sign the damn deal your leaders negotiated and get back to it.