IATSE Area Standards Deal: Tentative Agreement Reached
Entertainment’s top crew union struck a tentative deal with Hollywood’s studios and streamers for a contract covering 23 Locals on Thursday, just two days after their West Coast peers did the same.
IATSE announced in a message to its members that a three-year successor deal to its Area Standards Agreement has been reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The agreement will need to be ratified by IATSE members — 20,000 of whom work under the deal — before it can take effect.
Significant improvements in the ASA tentative agreement include: Scale wage rate increases of 7 percent, 4 percent, and 3.5 percent over the three-year term; Additional regional wage adjustments; A uniform benefit contribution rate for all jurisdictions with significant increases in both health and retirement representing as much as a $63 increase per employee, per day in some areas; Triple time paid after 15 elapsed hours; 33 percent increase in the Nearby Hire living allowance; Comprehensive Artificial Intelligence provisions that defines our covered work and protects against prompts used to displace a covered employee; Juneteenth added as a holiday; New Media Sideletter moved into the body of the agreement with the elimination of delayed 2nd season rates for all high budget streaming series; and Bereavement Leave
IATSE began negotiating the Area Standards Agreement on May 20, just a few weeks after the union’s West Coast Locals began negotiating their new deal. Leaders came into the talks with the goals of significantly raising wages, standardizing a benefit rate across Locals, regulating the use of AI, disincentivizing long workdays with harsher financial penalties, adding holidays, expanding sick leave and making adjustments to contract sideletters. The Area Standards Agreements talks paused without a deal on June 1, but resumed later that month, long before the agreement’s July 31 expiration date.
Crew members covered by the Area Standards deal work in regions outside of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
