Hollywood Teamsters and other crew unions reach tentative deals with studios

A coalition of unions representing drivers, mechanics, location managers, electricians and other Hollywood crew members has struck tentative contract deals with the major studios — closing out a long, turbulent chapter of labor activity in the film and TV industry.

As of late Saturday night, the Hollywood Basic Crafts and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have reached agreements on six different contracts. The settlements concluded several weeks of negotiations that became notably tense following a less contentious contract campaign led by fellow crew members union IATSE.

"After a long last 48 hours, we are proud to report that ALL Hollywood Basic Crafts Locals have reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP late this evening," Hollywood Basic Crafts spokesperson Amy Gorton said in a statement.

"The basic crafts spent today working closely with our member-led negotiating committees to finalize a deal with the AMPTP that we can now say is being unanimously recommended by our member-led bargaining committees."

The six new contracts bargained by the Hollywood Basic Crafts include the Teamsters Local 399 Black Book Agreement covering drivers, dispatchers, transportation administrators, animal trainers, wranglers and mechanics; the Teamsters Local 399 Location Manager Agreement covering location managers, assistant location managers and key assistant location managers; the LiUNA! Local 724 Basic Agreement covering laborers; IBEW Local 40 Basic Agreement covering electricians; the OPCMIA Local 755 Basic Agreement covering plasterers; and the UA Local 78 Basic Agreement covering plumbers.

They include terms related to pay, pension and health benefits, streaming residuals, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles.

The old agreements — covering a total of roughly 7,600 below-the-line workers — were set to expire July 31.

While bargaining with the AMPTP over the past several weeks, Hollywood Basic Crafts leaders repeatedly called out the entertainment companies for allegedly dragging their feet at the bargaining table and failing to adequately address key issues affecting crew members.

The heated tone of the negotiations was a marked shift from IATSE's contract campaign, which transpired largely without incident and culminated in a deal covering some 50,000 craftspeople primarily based in Los Angeles. IATSE members ratified the new Hollywood Basic Agreement earlier this month.

The final week of the Hollywood Basic Crafts campaign saw several other entertainment unions — including IATSE, the American Federation of Musicians, the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild — issue a joint statement pressuring the AMPTP "to respect their workforce and make meaningful moves at the negotiating table."

"As their contract deadline of July 31st quickly approaches, the clock is ticking on the AMPTP to address the unique needs of the various classifications within these unions," the statement read.

"Our guilds and unions stand strongly united behind the Teamsters and Hollywood Basic Crafts until they gain the compensation and working conditions they deserve."

On Friday, the AMPTP came to the bargaining table with what it deemed its "last, best and final" offer, the union said. The Hollywood Basic Crafts said it rejected that proposal and presented the studios with a counteroffer it felt strongly about.

"These aren’t just proposals on a piece of paper to our members. These are meaningful terms and conditions that impact their livelihoods," Lindsay Dougherty, principal officer of Teamsters Local 399 and chairperson of the Hollywood Basic Crafts, said Saturday in a statement.

"We think our response to the producer’s package is reasonable and would be a deal that gets this over the finish line.”

Throughout negotiations, Hollywood Basic Crafts leaders maintained that they were not looking to call a strike but cautioned that they were not interested in extending talks past the contracts' expiration date.

Fears of a potential crew member walkout peaked in the immediate aftermath of the writers' and actors' strikes, which rendered thousands of entertainment workers jobless for about six months. Even since the work stoppages lifted, many remain unemployed due to an ongoing industry contraction that predates the labor disputes.

Concerns of a third strike began to dissipate, though, once the IATSE contracts started falling into place .

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .