The union representing the New York Times newsroom filed a grievance Thursday challenging the company’s announcement that it plans to shutter its standalone sports desk and rely on the Athletic for its sports coverage in print and online. The grievance, sent from the NewsGuild to Times executives, accused the company of violating the union contract by “unilaterally removing bargaining unit work and by assigning such work to non-bargaining unit employees, namely the employees of The Athletic, a company owned by the New York Times.”
The AFL-CIO is pushing for Disney and Apple to explain how they use artificial intelligence.
The Labor Innovation and Technology Summit will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 9-10, alongside CES 2024, focusing on how the tech innovation revolution affects the American workforce. The unions will […]
The tentative agreement would end 18 months of negotiations that included a one-day work stoppage.
Exclusives
A petition additionally asks news outlets to bargain over the technology with workers outside of contract negotiations and to commit to never replacing a human with an AI tool.
A midshow spat between comedian Dave Chappelle and a fan. Division within the writers’ union after months of solidarity. Private discussions among Hollywood executives and stars about antisemitism. The entertainment industry is grappling with the same debates over Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks and Israel’s response that are playing out on college campuses, in offices and among friends.
Several subsidiaries of the crew union are bolstering their internal communications strategies before their labor contract with studios expires on July 31, 2024.
The NewsGuild is seeking to compel a journalist to give up his communications with his sources, as well as his correspondence with a former New York Times columnist. The move is part of an ongoing legal battle between the guild, the largest journalism union in the country, and Mike Elk, a former member and independent labor reporter.
Lowell Peterson‘s tenure as executive director of the Writers Guild of America East was destined to be bookended by strikes. After 15 years at the helm, Peterson will step down from his post as of Nov. 15 when his current three-year contract expires. WGA East leaders credited Peterson with nearly doubling the size of its membership and rebuilding the union’s staff and infrastructure since he took the helm in May 2008. That was three months after the Writers Guild of America concluded a 100-day strike against Hollywood’s largest employers.
Walt Disney Pictures visual effects workers voted to unionize under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. IATSE International President Matthew D. Loeb, in a statement, said the workers’ collective action “represents a seismic shift in this critical moment in our industry.” “This unanimous vote sends a clear message that the demands of VFX workers for dignity, respect, and fairness must be heard,” Loeb said. VFX workers have historically been nonunionized, despite working alongside crew members who have long been organized under IATSE. Earlier this year, VFX workers at Disney’s Marvel Studios voted to join the union.
“At some point you have to say no more,” Drescher, the former Nanny star who is now president of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said in an interview at the union’s headquarters Wednesday. “I think that it’s taken on a bigger scope, it’s greater than the sum of its parts. I think it’s a conversation now about the culture of big business, and how it treats everybody up and down the ladder in the name of profit.”
Actors guild says it is in contact with Frankel’s attorney and seeks to “engage in a new path to union coverage.”
It’s the latest evolution for scrappy nonprofit Mississippi Today, founded seven years ago by former NBC News executive Andy Lack. Pictured: Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe (center), with her parents, Bethel and Chris Wolfe, celebrating the news that she had won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in Jackson, Miss., in May. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
The Screen Actors Guild -American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said early Thursday that its decision on whether to join already striking screenwriters will be considered by leadership at a meeting later Thursday. If the actors go on strike, it will be the first time since 1960 that actors and writers picket film and television productions.
Unionized Hollywood actors on the verge of a strike have agreed to allow a last-minute intervention from federal mediators but say they doubt a deal will be reached by a negotiation deadline late Wednesday. Above: Actors and comedians Tina Fey, center, and Fred Armisen, right, join striking members of the Writers Guild of America on the picket line during a rally on May 9.
If actors go on strike when their deal with studios ends on Wednesday, it will be the first time they and the writers have been out at the same time since 1960.
With just days to go, SAG-AFTRA is stepping up its efforts to prepare for going on strike even as contract negotiations with Hollywood’s major studios intensify. On Thursday, SAG-AFTRA distributed a survey to its 160,000 members and alerted them that the union would be calling for volunteers to help make signs, work phone banks, distribute T-shirts and generally support a mobilization of pickets on the streets of Los Angeles, New York and selected other locations. The email message includes a survey of members’ availability to picket outside studio gates, New York offices and other key locations. Thursday’s communication was the second part of the initial survey questions sent to members on Wednesday.
The Writer Guild of America said Wednesday that “we stand in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA as they bargain for a contract that truly works for all their members.” It’s the first comment the WGA has made on the SAG-AFTRA talks since the actors’ union last week extended its contract until July 12 to allow negotiations for a new film and TV contract to continue.
Members of the Directors Guild of America have overwhelmingly ratified a new film and television contract. The vote was 87% in favor to 13% opposed, with 6,728 members voting out of 16,321 eligible (41%). According to the guild, “The turnout level exceeded any prior DGA ratification vote.” Releasing the voting data is a break from DGA custom; in the past, the guild would only say that contracts were ratified “overwhelmingly.”
As of press time, we don’t know if or when SAG-AFTRA will go on strike should its deal with the AMPTP expire on June 30 without a new contract. But with the Writers Guild already on strike, and a SAG-AFTRA strike a distinct possibility, the TV Academy is already starting to mull several different contingency plans on how to adjust the rest of the campaign season calendar — and what to do with the telecast, currently scheduled for Sept. 18 on Fox.
The Directors Guild and the studios have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract. The deal includes wage increases and “a 76% increase in foreign residuals for the largest platforms,” says the DGA. The pact, which also addresses AI, comes on the 33rd day of the Writers Guild strike, and just four days before SAG-AFTRA sits down at the bargaining table with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers – and two days before Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline for SAG-AFTRA members to vote for or against strike authorization. Like the directors, the actors’ guild current contract with the studios expires on June 30.
In an email to members Monday, the negotiating committee of the Writers Guild of America said nearly 98% of the 9,218 votes were cast to authorize the strike, with nearly 79% of guild members voting. The guild is currently negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a deal aimed at addressing pay and other changes brought on by the dominance of streaming services.
SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have agreed to begin formal contract negotiations on June 7. The guild’s current contract expires June 30. In a joint statement, they said that they are “approaching this process as an opportunity to engage in thoughtful and interactive conversations that result in a mutually-beneficial deal.”
As streamers face mounting pressure to save money, several are dropping shows. Erasing original shows can help streamers get tax write-downs and, to a smaller extent, save on residual payments. But it brings criticism that they are sidelining already marginalized voices and shortchanging creatives. These issues have increased tension between executives and writers amid union contract negotiations that started in March and could lead to a significant work stoppage.
The Writers Guild is taking its first step toward a potential industry strike. The union has set a strike authorization vote, with online polls opening April 11 at 8:30 p.m. and closing April 17 at 12 p.m., the guild announced to members on Monday. While a strike authorization vote does not ensure a writers strike will occur, it does gauge members’ willingness to cease work if the union deems a strike necessary.
The guild, which is currently at the table with studios and streamers over this issue and others, said Wednesday that artificial intelligence “has no role in guild-covered work, nor in the chain of title in the intellectual property.”
Fox Television Stations and writers and producers for its WNYW New York have struck a new four-year contract, according to the Writers Guild of America East, which represents those employees.
The deep-pocketed pro golf upstart has a revenue-sharing arrangement with Nexstar CW and pays for all of its TV production expenses.
While a couple of powerful unions have fought hard against the Standard General-Tegna merger, the fate of which is currently in the hands of an administrative law judge (ALJ), one local chapter of the International Union of Operating Engineers is a big backer of the transaction. In a letter to the FCC, Edward Curly, business manager of Local 501 of the IOUE, representing workers in Southern California and Southern Nevada, said Standard General and managing partner Soo Kim have been big supporters of organized labor and he expects no less from the merged companies. Kim has also said the company has had good relationships with unions.
