Directors Union Reaches Tentative Deal With Hollywood Studios

[SouthBayDem]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Emile (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Bloomberg

The Directors Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood studios, a victory for one of several entertainment industry unions seeking adjusted contracts this summer.

The tentative agreement reached Saturday will allocate a 5% wage increase in the first year of contract, 4% in the second year and 3.5% in the third year, according to a statement from the union, DGA. The deal also says that generative AI cannot replace duties performed by members as the technology isn’t considered a person.

“We have concluded a truly historic deal,” Jon Avnet, chair of the DGA’s Negotiations Committee said in the statement. “In these negotiations we made advances on wages, streaming residuals, safety, creative rights and diversity, as well as securing essential protections for our members on new key issues like artificial intelligence.”

As many Hollywood employees face contract expirations mid-summer, the agreement may provide a glimmer of hope for other industry unions advocating for higher pay and staffing insurances. The Writers Guild of America, which represents over 11,000 screenwriters, has been on strike since May, prompting the industry’s biggest film and TV studios to halt payments to some writer-producers.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-04/directors-union-reaches-tentative-deal-with-hollywood-studios

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Non-paywalled link

[calimary]

1. What about the writers?

[Tetrachloride]

2. Not much news at all. Closed mouthed on both sides.

[cstanleytech]

11. Who knows. I kind of doubt they will get all their demands especially the one regarding AI

as trying to prevent the adoption of new technology will be difficult.

[ZonkerHarris]

3. Giving a raise to all the below the line AD's and 2nd unit director's in that glorified IATSE local

that is the DGA won't end the WGA strike.
Only the AMPTP negotiating in good faith will do that.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

5. "Glorified IATSE local?"

Seriously?

You somehow managed to disparage both IATSE and the DGA all at one time?

I won't say much more than this, because we here at DU have rules against personal attacks. I've been a DGA member for more than forty years, and I have a great deal of respect for the people in IATSE, including my own kid who is an IATSE animator for Disney. I also helped negotiate some of these DGA contracts about forty years ago.

[ZonkerHarris]

6. You're lucky to be in the DGA, they always make big gains when the WGA fights for them.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

7. The DGA makes gains when the WGA fights for them?

I'm guessing that you must be another unsuccessful writer, as I can't see any other reason for this vitriol.

Please explain to me how the WGA fights for DGA contracts. I'm all ears.

[ZonkerHarris]

8. No, just an agent and manager in Hollywood for the last 40 years. I literally cant count

how many contract deals i've done over the years with the studios but they know the weakest link in the Hollywood union chain is always the DGA.
The DGA was in negotiation with AMPTP in Feb.
Their offers were 0 and 0 to the DGA.
The WGA goes out on strike and now your get "historic gains."
This was all expected and predicted.
Literally...

Link to tweet

BTW, that AI language promise you've been given by the studios is very weak.
I'd be rewriting it and using stronger protective language for any of my clients deals
AD's and 2nd unit etc will be the first replaced by AI there
They will keep the big name directors for marketing purposes

but you've sure got a really nice screening theater.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

12. The last time I checked...

... It was the legal responsibility of the DGA negotiators and lawyers to get the best deal for the DGA members, not for the members of IATSE, WGA, IBEW, NABET, Teamsters, or any other union. Likewise, it's the legal responsibility of the negotiators for those unions to get the best deal for their own members, not the DGA members. The attorneys and negotiators are required to do so by law. You are well aware of this if you are involved in contract negotiations.

The DGA has only gone on strike once in the years since I've been involved. That was 1987, and the strike lasted a grand total of about twenty minutes. The producers folded immediately. The DGA is the strongest union in Hollywood, quite simply because nothing can be produced without a director.

[ZonkerHarris]

18. One strike their history means they have wasted

Their immense power

[Grumpy Old Guy]

15. FYI

Last edited Mon Jun 5, 2023, 12:22 PM - Edit history (4)

"The DGA was in negotiation with AMPTP in Feb."
The DGA always begins their negotiations early, in a good faith effort to avoid an industry wide crippling strike. Nothing happens without the directors.

"Their offers were 0 and 0 to the DGA.
Their offers are always 0 and 0. The producers stopped offering anything at all about forty years ago. I've been at negotiating tables when they have not offered one single item. In fact, their proposals are usually all "take backs."

"The WGA goes out on strike and now your get "historic gains."
Right! Because we all know the producers live in fear of the writers going out on strike. I believe the negotiated pay raises are 5%, 4% and 3.5% over the three year contract. (Correct me if I'm wrong). This is indeed an improvement over the 3%, 3% and 3% we were getting before I retired twelve years ago.

"BTW, that AI language promise you've been given by the studios is very weak."
I believe it's the first of its kind.

"I'd be rewriting it and using stronger protective language for any of my clients deals"
Of course you would. That's your job. There have always been actors, directors, writers and others who were able to negotiate stronger personal services contracts. Most people don't have that luxury.

"but you've sure got a really nice screening theater."
That asinine, glib comment served no purpose, did it?

[kimmylavin]

9. I'm IATSE.

As is my husband.
He's currently out of work due to the strike, but we both support the WGA.

The DGA is... look, it's its own entity.
And they always get great contracts!

But maybe it's something like this?
https://deadline.com/2023/06/dga-deal-reaction-striking-writers-angry-1235408169/

Can't help but feel the DGA snaked everyone a little.

[calimary]

16. SAG-AFTRA here. I worked with a bunch of 'em. One station had ONLY IATSE people.

One network had only NABET people. They were all good, reliable, responsible, high-quality workers on the job. And many of them were fierce union supporters. Their unions were a lot more powerful and effective than I found AFTRA to be. When AFTRA merged with SAG I had high hopes, but it didn't seem to make much difference in "muscle-power". Especially as engineers were being phased out everywhere to spare management and upper management from having to pay them and negotiate salaries and benefits and all that.

You used to politely get your hand slapped if you touched the knobs. Toward the end of my time in that field, talent had to work ALL the knobs whenever they were in production or on the air. SHEESH - I remember the first week at one big station where we were making the switch to the air-talent handling all our own engineering. DAYUM, I went on the air with the first newscast of my shift, totally intimidated by that big mixing board in front of me, and the stack of carts I needed, over to the side of me. And at one point, while the mic was live, I reached over for another cart to load into the machine for the next story, and I accidentally knocked the whole stack over. BIG noise! Horrifying! Especially since that was the "Designated News Day" for the next Golden Mike competition. What saved me that day was that I had five newscasts to do, so maybe I'd have better luck getting a good submission for the Golden Mikes out of that day. And yeah, I did get lucky in that regard. But OOOOOOOH Lordy did I miss my engineer that day!

[marble falls]

4. I think the AI clause is interesting.

[highplainsdem]

14. Yes. "The deal also says that generative AI cannot replace duties performed by members as the

technology isn’t considered a person." Same point the writers are making.

[Jakes Progress]

10. This is not a union win. It is slimy.

Corporate interests are very successful at divide and conquer if the individual unions are filled with members who are greedy and don't understand what a union is.

Avnet can crow about his "truly historic deal" that cuts the rug out from under other workers. But he has basically sold out. For the DGA's 30 pieces of silver, they turn their backs on the writers.

If all of the entertainment unions had practiced solidarity, the strikes would have ended in a week and everyone would have benefitted. This way the corporations just gleefully pick off the unions and make them ineffective.

This is not a glimmer of hope. It is just a sneaky way the corporations make directors think they have a union. The bosses just screwed you, and you are just happy to get your pennies as you screw other workers.

Same always happens in the airline industry too. Pilots, flight attendants, ground crew. All on their own. That isn't how unions work.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

13. The contracts are not concurrent.

Last edited Mon Jun 5, 2023, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

It would be nice if all the union contracts came up at the same time, and then all the unions could go out all at once. That would only happen in a fairy tale, wouldn't it.

If you can think of a way to make this happen, please let the negotiators know.

[Jakes Progress]

17. That is nonsense.

The writers are on strike. Then the directors enter negotiations. They could have struck without breaching contract.

Nope. This was greedy directors getting theirs while writers fight for their work lives.

And nice has nothing to do with it. The union leaders have let them get out of sync to help the corporates. It got them a quick deal at the expense of their brother workers. No strike clauses are another way of doing this. Contracts don't have to be synched. Solidarity is the only way unions work.

[Emile]

19. After an alert and discussion with the hosts locking.

Tentative deal... wait till the standoff is actually resolved to post it in LBN. Status reports belong in GD.