In late April, Bernie Sanders and AOC held a gigantic rally in Los Angeles, attended by over 36,000 people. At the head of the rally was a group called Production Assistants United.
For decades, production assistants were traditionally not well unionized According to a Payday Report analysis, production assistants are among at least 22,000 workers to unionize in the entertainment industry in the two years since the Writers Guild strike began in 2023.
"Many in the film business would tell you that winning protections for PAs is impossible," production assistant organizer Clio Byrne-Gudding told the crowd. "But you know what? Here in the film business, we do the impossible on a daily basis."
In the two years since the strike, the depth of Hollywood organizing has expanded into previously unorganized areas, such as early career workers like production and casting assistants, video game makers, and special effects workers. The organizing momentum has spilled over into other entertainment industry sectors, such as theater workers, ballet dancers, and even Chippendales dancers.
It seemed fitting that the Production Assistants Union would be at the head of Sanders and AOC's massive 36,000 "Fighting the Oligraphcy" tour: Across the country, the Hollywood Strike has helped to mobilize workers.
When Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga became the first autoworkers to organize a foreign-owned plant in the South, some cited the organizing gains in the Writers Guild strike.
"Seeing the writers go on strike and standing up for their rights that was, I was so excited," Volkswagen worker Caleb Michalski told Payday Report last year. "In the back of our minds was like, 'Man, I wonder if auto workers, if we're going to start seeing something like that here.'"
While many in the labor movement overlook the success of film and TV worker organizing, it's essential to study and understand what's possible.
Payday Report has assembled a map of over 200 organizing drives in the past two years. The map includes links and workers' stories, which present a valuable resource for helping people understand organizing in the entertainment sector.
Early Career Workers
One of the most significant shifts in organizing has been unionizing the thousands of early-career employees who have traditionally been left out of unions.
In 2024, LIUNA launched the Production Assistants Union to organize these tough-to-organize workers. Many thought it was strange that a construction union would launch this union. Still, given that LIUNA represents lower-skilled laborers on construction sites, the union felt it was a natural fit.
"They're a lot like us," Local 724 business manager Alex Aguilar, Jr told the Hollywood Reporter. "At LiUNA, we do a lot of the stuff that no one wants to do. And that's what they do — a lot of the work that folks just frankly don't want to do."
Since many production assistant jobs are short-term, the union asks workers to sign up directly. As a result of their advocacy, the union is seeking to represent production assistants on any major studio project being done by AMPTP, the major studio organization.
IATSE has had some success organizing production assistants, winning union rights for the 5,000 production assistants it organized in the video commercial industry. IATSE has launched its "Stand with Production" movement.
While film PAs have sought a less traditional union, other established unions have expanded to include their entry-level coworkers. Actors Equity, which represents stage managers and live performance actors, has organized Broadway's production assistants.
"Every one of these workers, whether their title is production stage manager, stage manager, assistant stage manager, or production assistant, is a skilled professional and essential to the team. And yet, production assistants have stood alone for too long as the only members of these teams without the basic protections of union contracts…. Until now," Equity's 3rd Vice President Erin Maureen Koster told Playbill.
Other casting assistants also organized with the Teamsters, bringing even early-stage entertainment workers under union protections.
Virtual Special Effects
Virtual Special Effects (VFX) workers struggled to unionize for years, but many cited the strike as the catalyst for forming the first VFX unions in the country.
In early August of 2023, approximately 50 workers announced the first VFX union at Marvel. Later that month, 18 workers at Disney announced that they would become the second VFX unit to unionize.
"The longer the AMPTP strikes continue, the more workers in the film and TV industry will unionize," tweeted IATSE in August of 2023. "We're seeing unprecedented demand for unionization and this is yet another organizing breakthrough in a sector once thought untouchable."
By November, IATSE would announce its third unionized VFX unit when VFX workers employed by DNEG in Vancouver, Canada, voted to join. On December 14th, IATSE announced the VFX artists behind the Avatar franchise became the 4th VFX unit that had filed for union representation.
The strike efforts also extended to animation workers in Canada. In 2023, over 800 artists voted to unionize at Wildbrain Studios, makers of The Snoopy Show, in Vancouver.
"All too often, artists and creatives are told that precarious work with low pay and poor conditions is just the price we pay for doing what we love. Not anymore! We are building a movement to make Wildbrain a place where workers can love what they do, be proud of what they create, AND enjoy a fulfilling, sustainable, and long-term career." IATSE 938 said on its website for Wildbrain workers.
Intimacy Coordinators Unionize
When the film Anora won an Oscar, it drew controversy. The film only signed an IATSE contract after a protest from the union nearly two months into production.
The film also didn't use an intimacy coordinator. In recent years, unions have been insisting that intimacy coordinators be allowed on all sets where sex scenes take place.
"It is next to impossible for a performer to say no to someone who has hiring and firing power," Marci Liroff told Variety. "You don't want to seem needy. You don't want to have to spend more money — we're a new position on set, so we're a new line item on the budget."
As the union pushes for more intimacy coordinators, they are becoming unionized. In 2024, all 25 intimacy coordinator positions were organized under SAG-AFTRA.
Movie Theater Workers Unionize
For years, movie theaters have traditionally been non-union, but now, as movie theaters close across the country with the rise of new release at-home streaming during the pandemic, many theater workers are being laid off. Staffing issues led workers at two New York City Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas to seek a union after the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon pushed the understaffed crews to the edge.
"People were waiting longer than usual for their food, and that makes them short-tempered and impatient," recalls shift leader Tyler Trautman. "We're the ones facing customers. It takes a mental toll, to be yelled at by guests because their drink has been taking an hour."
In March of this year, Alamo Drafthouse workers went out to protest for 70 workers who had been laid off. After 58 days on strike at three unionized locations in New York and Colorado, workers won the reinstatement of all of these laid-off workers.
Ballet Dancers, Off-Broadway Stagehands, and Chippendales
Finally, the effects of union organizing have spilled over to dancers across the United States in ballet and even at Chippendales locations.
"The biggest issue that was surprising to me was health benefits, specifically, and sick leave," cast member Freddy Godinez told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "There are performers there that have been with the show for seven years, one of them has been there 10 years, and there are no benefits offered for the performers."
Off-Broadway theaters, where many future hit shows incubate, have also seen stagehands, hair and makeup, ticket sellers, and ushers organize in the wake of post-COVID-19 disruptions. These workers, crucial to creating the future shows for Broadway, have sought a voice in their workplaces.
"Theatres are having meaningful conversations with themselves, but unfortunately a lot of those conversations seem to happen with the folks at the top of the organizations, talking about it with their boards of directors and trustees," Little told American Theatre. "It can take hundreds of people to produce a play: the actors, the musicians, the production employees, but also the ticket sellers and the ushers and everyone who contributes. They've often been left out of the conversation and are simply told what's going to happen. But they want to be part of that conversation too."
