Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Monia Gay, and this is a presentation on the 2021 IATSE strike threat that affected film, television, mainly crew members, and was threatening to disrupt the entire entertainment industry. Originally, I was interested in presenting on what the rate of injuries was following the proposed strike, which we thought was going to happen at the time of the session proposal. It turned out that the strike did not happen, and it was a bit too early to gather that kind of data, so that's what I'm hoping to bring forth at a future AOHC follow-up to this presentation. So for right now, we're just going to look at what is this very, very large and old labor union in a group of unions in the U.S. and Canada, and what this strike threat was all about, and some of their history. So IATSE is the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists, and Allied Crafts of the United States, its territories, and Canada. It's almost 130 years old. It consists of about 150,000 members, of which about 60,000 were involved in this attempted or threatened strike. The largest division is the cinematographers, or directors of photography. Those are the people actually filming what's going on in the production, and that's actually going to become important later. Other crafts and professions that could be found under IATSE include film editors, animators, art directors, script supervisors, makeup and hair, props, stagehands, and people who set up and tear down trade shows, much like this convention right now. So the history of IATSE, before these specialized stage and film employees were unionized, we had early theater companies which were run sort of in this co-op model where everyone kind of did everything. You know, the actors would be also selling tickets, they would be helping to build the sets, it was very fluid. And then in the late 1700s, this all switched to touring troops from New York, and with the availability of the railroad, what happened is they would mount the production in New York and then take it on the road. And as a result of this, specialization increased, so you had people who would just be a carpenter, or just be a set designer, as opposed to the actor slash everything else. At that time, the working conditions were pretty bad. There were long hours, no job security, people might be asked to come into work for five days and then the production closes. Just kidding, you've made yourself available for us, but we're not available to you and you're out of work for those days. There was also competition from child labor, because they would take kids off the street and say, hey, do you want to be an extra in this? And then also, you know, also haul some stuff and that would, you know, sometimes even being in the production would be the payment, or they would just get paid a pittance, so that creates some difficulty in terms of having reliable work. And at this time, the National Labor Relations Act is still half a century away, almost 50 years, so it's, I think, even more remarkable that all of this came together when it did. So, the union was different from the individual craft unions, which still exist, you still have the makeup and hair artists have their own union, you still have, you know, the costumers have their own union. But they all come together under this umbrella, and what unifies them is that we're all in show business, as opposed to some other industries where they seem to be more siloed and they don't necessarily bargain altogether, even though their job descriptions are something different. And, you know, later on, you know, things obviously started out with theater in terms of entertainment, but motion pictures and film came to light, and working on those also used to be very not protected and, you know, I see way uncertain to make a living. It was actually like day labor work where you would hang out at the outside of the movie studio and then see if anyone's got some work for you that day. And, you know, whoever's hiring you, obviously is calling all the shots, they're saying, you know, this is the pay rate, you know, take it or leave it, you know, if you want to put food on the table that day, this is how it is. So very unpredictable. And interestingly, at the time, you know, about the 20s, vaudeville and burlesque theaters were really what people were going to for their entertainment, but movies were starting to take over. And these theater owners, they wanted to pay their employees less and, you know, not maintain good working conditions. So, and their theater stagehands were having these demands like, hey, we want to be paid more, we want to be protected. And what they would do, the theater owners, was say, we're going to switch to these motion pictures, and you, the stagehand, will be out of a job, unless you just, you know, stop demanding these protections. And part of the move to California from the film industry, where it used to be, you know, primarily in New Jersey, was not only for the sunshine and the ability to have more hours of light in the day to shoot your film, because this was before fancy lighting, artificial lighting, but it was also because labor was less organized and less powerful in California, which is a less known reason that Hollywood became the center of everything. So, as the film industry was nascent, it was actually kind of dangerous to work in the film industry. There were electrical accidents, there were nitrate fires and toxic gas exposures from being a film projectionist, and work hours were still long, particularly in the Great Depression. What they did, you know, to survive is introduce the double feature. You get two movies for the price of one, but then your film projectionist is in the booth for twice as long, and often they're not getting paid adequately for the extra overtime they're working. And theater was, you know, in competition with these films, and they started to cut costs, you know, recycling props, recycling costumes, very cheap, sparse sets, but then there was sort of a renaissance with productions like, you know, the Phantom of the Opera, and, you know, more of that sort of golden age of musicals when theatrical employees and stagecraft became more important. So, that caused it to blossom again and cause all those talents to become more in demand. And meanwhile, on the film side, there was a demand for films to look more realistic, and that also put more of a demand on skilled stagecraft, complex makeup, better costumes, better props, lighting, people wanted visual effects, they just wanted more exciting things and more realistic looking things in their films. My impression from researching the union is that a lot of the focus for most of the early years was on just, you know, getting people paid, making it so that if they were promised work that there would be guaranteed some kind of pay. And it seems like, you know, as things got, you know, more settled and the union got more powerful, then they were able to start focusing more on safety. So, that's why, you know, surprisingly it wasn't until 1997 that they established a safety board. And some of the hazards of working in this industry as a crew member include slips, trips, falls, electrocution, electrical accidents, as I mentioned, motor vehicle accidents, and, you know, falling equipment, you'll hear some more about that a bit later. And it's important to remember also that, you know, we as doctors are used to working very long hours, for example, in residency and even after, but in this case, people are responsible for heavy equipment, for negotiating their way around very tight spaces. A lot of times they're outside in the elements for very long hours, and there can be a lot of uncertainty into when they get to eat, when they get to rest. So, it can almost be like residency, but outside, howling wind, or in cold, and while you're lifting heavy stuff all day. So, it can really be quite demanding and taxing, and people are responsible for the health and safety of a lot of people, which can overall create a pretty risky situation if it's not appropriately managed. In 2014, the union began offering entertainment safety courses. They developed a hotline called IA Aware, and there is also a safety app where members can report hazards on set and communicate more clearly with the union that way in terms of what they're seeing on the ground. Here's a picture of what the safety app looks like. You can see it's very simple. You can enter your name, contact information, what's your work state, what's the production, what's the hazard, what's going on. So, in 2021, what was this strike threat about? They typically have three-year film and television contracts, and about half of the members had actually voted against their 2018 contract because they felt it was still too permissive, permitting excessively long working hours, which are definitely a hallmark of the film and television industry. Again, there are a lot of parallels to residency. This contract was set to expire on July 31st of 2021, but at that point, the union had already received over 50 reports of 14-hour work days just in the preceding six months or so. That, of course, is just the people that are willing to report it and getting around to report it. It's probably people that are fairly senior, as opposed to someone who's a brand-new electrical tech or a brand-new prop assistant or something like that. The 22-year-old person is probably not going to be reporting hazardous working conditions or overwork, so the likely number of incidents is probably a lot more. Having been on sets, it can often be more like 17, 18, 20 hours at a stretch. That is really not unusual at all. Based on this, Etsy distributed a pamphlet saying long and irregular hours without adequate breaks and rest are unsafe. We're reunified in our recognition that no other industry demands its employees work without bathroom, meal, or relaxation breaks day after day. No other industry deprives its employees of the time to drive to and from work and get eight hours of rest. This is a statement from the cinematographers, the directors of photography, again the largest contingent of this union. They said, we're writing to express our ongoing concern about the hazards of unsafe working hours, a practice that continues despite all the medical and indisputable evidence of the harm caused by fatigue. Most notable are the numerous car accidents our colleagues have suffered in recent years, including the weekend before we entered these negotiations. These can include both on-set car accidents where, for example, you're doing a stunt or you're filming the actor driving down the highway or something like that, or driving to and from your set. The negotiations that were going on were being held with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. And IATSE as a union, if they strike, it really is a bigger effect on television and movie production across the country than other union strikes, because the Directors Guild, the writers, the actors, there's a lower percentage of those members actively working at any given time. It's more somewhat feast or famine. But the IATSE members who are crew, they aren't paid as much as those other union members, or it's a less competitive industry, that contingent of people is more vital. There's not just always someone else that you can turn around and grab that's a very experienced cinematographer or a very experienced sound recordist, for example. So that was very threatening to the livelihood of the entertainment industry and caused a lot of press attention. The negotiations actually had to be paused for specific COVID safety negotiations. And interestingly, the perception of how COVID was handled on sets drove the dissatisfaction with the overall contract and drove IATSE to push for even better conditions with their overall contract. So some of the COVID workarounds that were not liked were things like using meal penalties to just burn through mealtimes and not take the break. So on a set, if you go past a certain amount of time without feeding your crew, then you either stop and feed everybody, or you pay everybody who's working there, that includes the actors and the crew, you pay them what's called a meal penalty. So that's a bump in pay for that day. But that's typically been so small, that it's not really a deterrent to skipping meals. So then what happens is, is they just end up plowing through and shooting and people are just hungry for a really long time, which is obviously not good for, as I mentioned, people in tight spaces, handling heavy equipment, doing dangerous things. And because of COVID as well, there was restrictions on whether people could be eating around each other, and particularly when we didn't have vaccination. So again, you know, producers were using that as an excuse to just not have people eat. And there were other concerns around this, but IATSE was thinking we should have to take this opportunity to create a better contract. And the time pressures, you know, were not only driven by the restrictions by COVID. But even prior to that, we're in the age of, you know, peak television and all these streaming platforms. And a lot of times, you know, you are rushing to finish things because your director, for example, might be shooting one television show over a few days, and then they might, you know, have to run over to do a different one. So you really are trying to cram things in all the time. And some injuries and accidents that, you know, contributed to the urgency around this include people who were injured or killed by a student's plane, a stuntman who was killed among several incidents on The Walking Dead, a show called LA's Finest, and in Los Angeles several people were injured in a motor vehicle accident. Very sad case, a lift fell on a production assistant's head and there was something where she couldn't hear that it was near her because of some noise issue and she was paralyzed. A crew member crashed between cars and America's Got Talent falling into a lake, and the famous case of Alec Baldwin's prop gun killing the cinematographer on his film and wounding the director, and that was really days before the crew was planning, and particularly the cinematographer, was planning to join the strike because it hadn't been averted yet. And because this is what people in the industry do is make films and make art about compelling issues. There are multiple films that people in the industry have made that are specifically about set working conditions. So hours before the strike, a contract was arrived at. They did increase some of the pay for the meal penalties to try to make it an actual penalty and discourage that meal skipping because it's also skipping your break, it's decreasing your rest, you know, increased rest breaks. Having a 10-hour turnaround time, so that's kind of like your post-call protected period where you can't have, you have to have the 10 hours between shifts, and increased protected time on the weekend because I think since the 80s, IATSE had sort of, or not IATSE, but the industry had sort of eliminated the five-day work week and made the seven days just bleed into each other, so they wanted to push back on that and increase some protected time on the weekend or, you know, if you're going to have people on the weekend, pay them more. And potentially relevant to safety issues as well, increasing pay for working on streaming shows was a big issue as well because for a long time, the unions, or the producers rather, were trying to pass working on a streaming show like a Netflix or Hulu as new media and an internet show that wasn't as solid or serious as working on a cable network show, for example, but when it turned out that these shows were actually being given, you know, multi-million dollar budgets, the union said, okay, we have to have some parody here because it's passing these things off as a quick, you know, homemade YouTube video when it's really a huge production budget show or film. But because the union works on an electoral college system, this contract actually lost the popular vote and some of the concerns included the contract not going far enough, like some people wanted the 12-hour turnaround time as opposed to the 10 hours because there was still concern that it was not enough time to ensure that, you know, falling asleep car accidents would be prevented, that people would be well-rested enough to do the very, you know, again, physically and mentally challenging jobs that they do. So it'll remain to be seen how much these protections help to reduce work injuries and and, you know, onset and offset injuries related to film and television productions, and we may see further changes in the negotiations and contracts in the future. Thank you. I'm going to go over to swap card. I don't know if I can hear questions through the Zoom. All right, great. Can you guys hear me? All right, yeah. Dr. Day, this is John Piacentino. Thank you for that presentation. We have several folks in the room here as well, and I'll open it up. If anybody has an interest in asking a question, please come forward, and you can use this mic here, actually. And Dr. Day, I'm also looking in the chat over here, and it looks like I don't see any questions, but I'm wondering if you do, and I'm just missing it. Yeah, I'm just clicking into it right now. Yes, I can see. I hope the sound quality improved. Yeah, much better. Actually, we have a question in the room. Go ahead. Yeah, I have a question on crew driving to and from a film set or TV set. If they have a car accident driving from their home to a TV set, is that covered by workers comp or not? For most companies, it would not be covered unless you got on onto the actual property. Do you have any idea if that would be covered? Quick question. I'm hearing the echo. Do I leave swap card, or do I leave audio on Zoom? I think you could leave swap card, and I can monitor the chat there. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah, I'm actually looking at the chat, and it doesn't appear to have any. We have no questions. Did you hear the question in the room? I think the question was, the driving to and from, is it covered by workers comp? Correct. I am not sure definitively, but based on everything I saw around the arguments for the negotiations, the unions are certainly considering that to be part of the work process, and particularly if it's between two work days. For example, the crew on Rust, where the cinematographer was killed, they were complaining, I think, that where their hotel was to drive to was something like an hour away from where they were shooting, and that was also causing fatigue issues. Okay, great. Thank you. Other questions? Hi. Karen Hoiple. The question I have is, tracking of missing people. Tracking of mishaps. You mentioned some of the big ones, but what you didn't talk about was all the little mishaps that don't meet the high-end criteria, so how does an industry who is spread out all over the place track all of the mishaps? Absolutely, and that's something that if I bring you all an update, I'm hoping to do, because there would be more data around those smaller mishaps as well as the larger ones. I presume that the app tracking system is helping with that somewhat, because that may be a way to report things that perhaps OSHA wouldn't come out for, but the union can, because they have more people potentially on the ground. So, within the individual productions and the sets, it is their responsibility to track those things as well. So, each production is like a business, so when you're employed by a production, typically, at least as an actor, and I presume it's similar for crew as well, you get paid by, you know, let's say, what's in the movie Mission Impossible, so you will probably be paid by Mission Impossible LLC, and you're a W-2 employee of that, so there were like many businesses until the production wrapped, so they would also be keeping track. We have another question. Good morning, everyone. I'm Dr. Carmen Perez, and I have a question. What's your name, please? O'Neill. He has an interesting question before, and the first question about the car accident, because going to work or after work, or the parking or the parking lot to the place where you are performing in the field industry or any kind of setting you represent, and I'm thinking about alcohol drinking as a requirement during performance. Is that covered if the performer or the actor or actress or whatever have an accident as a consequence of the alcohol drinking in a field, for example? Is that covered after work? Because the effect of the alcohol sometimes is after work. Is that covered also or not covered? Any injury or illness? So I am not aware of any incidents where a performer had to consume alcohol specifically. Usually what you're seeing on productions is grape juice or something that looks like white wine or it looks like a drink, but it's all trickery. They're basically drinking colored water. So as far as I know, the alcohol issue is a non-issue. However, it did bring to mind another issue, which is the issue of gaining weight or losing weight for productions, which I think is potentially an interesting and unexplored area. Because what if you have somebody who is gaining 50 pounds to play some large person, and then they have a heart attack, right? So whose fault is that exactly? And would that have happened if they weren't suddenly trying to gain weight? And I don't think there, you know, to my knowledge, there hasn't been a legal case about that, at least not in my adult lifetime that I can remember, but that's an interesting area to explore and, you know, maybe have some sort of, you know, policy or thinking around. I think heart attack is a consequence of multifactorial. I'm not talking about a heart attack. I'm talking, for example, trip and fall as a consequence of the person is drunk. Just that. Going home, for example. Do you mask, for example, if the essence is required to drink alcohol, do you mask that with water? Or the people have to drink alcohol, really alcohol. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, no, there's, there, I really can't think of a time in performance that you have to specifically drink alcohol. Now, you know, people may, people may choose to drink alcohol at a wrap party. You know, a concert performer, you know, may drink on stage, but that's typically because that's something that they're doing to make themselves feel good. And that's a personal choice. I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not talking after party, okay? I'm talking in a film, okay? You have to drink alcohol or you mask that with water. Hi, I'm John O'Neill. I'm also an occupational medicine doctor, but I'm also a filmmaker and a film producer. There is really no way you're going to have a production company require someone to drink alcohol while they're shooting. Now, you may have some method actor that says they have to do it, but the, there's no, there's no way a production company is going to require someone to drink alcohol on a set for something, just like they're not going to require you to use drugs when you're doing a drug scene in place or stuff like that. But there is a lot of alcohol use afterwards. It's called the martini shot after you finish the last shot of the day. But that, that, that really wouldn't, wouldn't come up. Yeah, they're, they're actors. They're, they're actors. They're, they're not, it's, it's not, it's not, it's not going to happen. It just, it's not going to happen. Okay. Before we move on to the next question, excuse me, before we move on to the next question, I do want to take a question from the chat just to keep our folks engaged online. And Dr. Day, one of the folks in the chat has asked, what about the injury rates before and after the strike? I think you may have addressed that early on in your presentation, but I was wondering if you could please revisit that. Sure. Yes. If you, so if you came in the way I said at the beginning that it turned out that it was, it was kind of early to be able to get that data because of the way that the data collection is done. So, so instead I said, okay, we're going to kind of cover, you know, you know, what this mean is, what these job descriptions are, how this all came about in terms of the increase in worker protections for film television and stage. And what I'm hoping to do is gather some of that data when, you know, when it's more robust and we can see if, you know, particularly for, you know, you know, for the entirety of 2022 and not just part of it, did things improve in terms of complaints, in terms of accidents, injuries, deaths, all of that. Very good. Thank you. And we have another question in the room. Thank you for waiting. Hi, my name is Lori Schwartz. I'm one of Walt Disney Company's medical directors. I was also going to add to the prior question. It's all phony. It's not alcohol, even though it looks like it, it's all fake apple juice, whatever it's wine. So it's not alcohol. It looks very real, but they don't, they don't drink. So my question is, as part of the strike, was Local 80 included? And I think it was the nurses, the paramedics, the EMTs, the set medics, they were included in that, correct? That the almost strike. Interesting. I'm not sure because as I was mentioning, it was the actual, the groups, the locals that were considering striking was actually a fraction of the full component that I had seen. But, you know, I would be not surprised if they were included. Yeah, because I thought they were going to strike. Yeah, I thought Local 80 was going to strike. So that's our nurses that go to the sets, you have set medics, and that would be a problem also, if they went on strike, because of all the slips and falls, etc. Yeah, because you, you have to have a medic on from, you know, as soon as people start arriving, basically, because otherwise, you know, it's not, it's not a very good look if someone slips and falls setting something up, and you didn't have your medic there. So yeah, they're working long hours too. Okay, thank you. Very good. Any other questions? And we have none on the chat. Dr. Day, I want to thank you very much for sharing your perspective and taking your time to visit us at the American Occupational Health Conference. Thank you to everyone. Great, thank you. Have a good morning, folks. Thank you.

Dr. Monia Gay

IATSE

labor union

film and television industry

working conditions

job security

crew members