IATSE Has “Cautious Optimism” About General Negotiations With Studios

IATSE is looking to wrap up local-specific negotiations with the studios this week before the guild turns its attention to general contract talks.

There are just three locals left to strike tentative deals with the Alliance of Motion Picture Television Producers on craft issues. Locals 44 and 705 are slated to begin talks Monday, and Local 884 will be the last to start bargaining, likely later in the week.

Deadline hears local talks should be done by the end of the week in order to give the negotiating committee another week of caucusing before heading into bargaining for the Basic Agreement on April 29.

So far, things have been going quite smoothly for IATSE, prompting a “feeling of momentum that these negotiations have gone in some cases like clockwork,” a union source tells Deadline.

“Right now, there’s a feeling like both sides came to negotiate a deal and that’s what we’re seeing play out,” the source adds.

This year, to allow each local multiple days of bargaining, the AMPTP and IATSE agreed to operate under a strategy where ”two locals will negotiate simultaneously at any given time.” This was driven at least in part by the fact that the west coast locals weren’t able to bargain on craft-specific issues in 2020 due to the pandemic, and therefore haven’t addressed many of their deal points in six years.

Union sources call the extra bargaining time a “positive sign,” keeping in mind that there is still plenty left to go.

General talks for the Basic Agreement, along with bargaining for the Area Standards Agreement, will represent the majority of the contract and include issues that impact all members like wage increases, pension and health contributions, artificial intelligence, job security and residuals.

Deadline hears that none of the locals included AI in their proposals, and the union is expecting that to be a “point of contention,” along with residuals.

Any mention of AI or residuals in the context of labor negotiations is likely to send shivers down the spine of most in Hollywood after last year’s dual strikes, which were driven in large part by those very subjects. The Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA both led historic work stoppages of more than 100 days to gain significant achievements in both areas — though the strikes didn’t come without a cost to the entire industry.

As all of Hollywood weathers through the current tightening of the belt, it seems no one particularly wants another summer of strikes, but the below-the-line workers are committed to their own contract gains, and the other unions appear to be standing by them.

Teamsters Local 399 boss Lindsay Dougherty made an appearance at Sunday’s WGA Awards in a show of continued solidarity among the guilds that was quite unprecedented up until last year.

The below-the-line folks came out in droves to support writers and actors on the picket lines, and they are now receiving the same show of allegiance in return. Even Jimmy Kimmel gave them a shoutout at the Oscars, vowing that Hollywood workers are standing behind them no matter the outcome of the negotiations.

Neither IATSE nor the Basic Crafts currently have a strike authorization vote — a departure from last year when the WGA approached the table with that authorization already in hand. However, IATSE already has made it clear it is not interested in extending past the current contract expiration date of July 31.  

Sources tell Deadline that IATSE is approaching general talks with “cautious optimism” based on how the last few weeks have gone.

“The behavior of the AMPTP up until this point has been that they’re understanding of the circumstances and willing to negotiate,” a source said, highlighting the difference from last year’s talks with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, where the two sides “went in and almost immediately, there’s no movement or ability to find some common ground there…I think [the AMPTP has] learned a lesson from that.”

Talks for the Basic Agreement are expected to run until mid-May, at which point IATSE will continue into bargaining for the Area Standards Agreement, which covers 23 additional IATSE locals across the U.S.

The Teamsters and other Hollywood Basic Crafts will hold negotiations in June, though they will also regroup with IATSE at the negotiating table soon to address the pension and health proposals that they jointly presented to the AMPTP in March.

All contracts are currently set to expire on July 31.