Another day, another deal. IATSE Local 695 has officially reached a tentative agreement with the studios.
Leadership from the Local 695 — which represents technicians across production sound, video assist, video engineering and studio projection — informed members of the deal in an email on Monday night.
According to leadership, their proposal included discussions of adequate staffing, equitable pay, and on-set safety, which was supported by testimony from members.
“The tenor of discussions in the room was productive, the producers addressed all of our core issues at the table, and we made meaningful gains in all areas,” leadership wrote in the email to members. “We look forward to sharing more information with you once the Memorandum of Agreement has been drafted and submitted to the Local for approval.”
The deal came quite quickly for Local 695 during the second full week of local-specific negotiations for IATSE, following the Cinematographers Guild (Local 600), the Set Painter & Sign-Writers (Local 729) and the Art Directors Guild (Local 800), which struck tentative deals last week with the AMPTP.
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Negotiations kicked off March 4 with the leadership of IATSE, the Hollywood Teamsters and other crafts guilds meeting with the AMPTP for several days to discuss health and pension benefits, and offer proposals. Then there was a week of caucusing before the first of the 13 LA Locals sat down at the bargaining table with the studios.
It’s looking good so far, but there will be a lot more to come. The AMPTP has not presented a counterproposal regarding the general issues.
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The Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700) are expected to begin negotiations with the AMPTP this week as well under a strategy where ”two locals will negotiate simultaneously at any given time” with the studios over the next month.
The current contracts are set to end July 31. Overall, around 60,000 industry-related IATSE members are affected by the contracts.
