Bitter disputes over health and pension payments to union members have created plenty of drama in states and cities this year. But do not look for a movie about it ? Hollywood will be too busy dealing with a labour crisis of its own.
After three relatively peaceful years, the entertainment industry is bracing for a showdown next spring. At issue is an enormous projected shortfall in financing for some of the most jealously guarded perks in show business, the heavily gilded health and pension plans.
No one is talking of a strike yet. In fact, no one with official standing is talking publicly. Leaders of the industry?s craft and blue-collar unions and officials of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios and other production companies, have all declined to discuss what will happen when several contracts expire on July 31.
But in town hall meetings over the last two months, union leaders have told members that weak industry economics, a tough investment climate and, above all, sharp increases in healthcare outlays are expected to create a $500-million shortfall by 2015.
?We?re going to be asking for money, lots of it,? Matthew Loeb, the president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, told a gathering at the union?s Local 80 here in late September. His union represents about 50,000 set designers, makeup artists, grips and other film workers.
To put things in perspective, the contract that in 2008 settled a three-month strike by Hollywood?s writers was estimated to include total pay and benefits increases of less than a third of that amount over three years. A subsequent, hard-fought three-year deal with the Screen Actors Guild, with about 120,000 members, cost the companies only about $250 million. One person involved with the pension and health plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation, called the looming half-billion dollar shortfall ?staggering?.
The workers represented under the stage employees? contracts have been known more for making deals than picking fights. In years past, the union might have been at the bargaining table a year before the contract deadline; this time talks may not start until spring. The last full-blown craft strikes occurred more than half a century ago, and involved a different configuration of unions; Hollywood?s Teamsters, the other major union headed for a 2012 showdown, have not staged a major strike since 1988.
But the current situation is volatile, partly because the Teamsters and some allied unions who share health and pension plans with IATSE aligned the expiration of their contracts with those of the larger theatrical workers alliance by shortening their last contract cycle to two years.
This time, those unions are expected to bargain jointly on health and pension issues. A walkout would instantly stop film and television production in the Los Angeles area, and would affect production in New York and elsewhere, because editors, camera crews and some others are represented on a national basis. NYT