N.Y. Postproduction Workers File to Unionize Over AMPTP’s Voluntary Recognition Objection

A group of over 150 freelance postproduction workers based in New York have filed a petition for an election with the National Labor Relations Board as they seek to unionize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

The Post Production Guild, as the group is calling themselves, filed the petition on Tuesday and did so after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) “repeatedly refused” to voluntarily recognize the group, the CWA says in a press release. According to the CWA, “virtually all” of eligible workers signed union cards.

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The Post Production Guild seeks to bargain on behalf of post producers, postproduction supervisors and postproduction coordinators who work in scripted film and television. (Members of the group have worked on projects including American Rust, Russian Doll, Modern Love, A Quiet Place 2, In the Heights and other titles.) They’re seeking to standardize wages and implement wage minimums and weekly guarantees, set consistent job descriptions, implement MPIPHP health insurance, pension and benefits, negotiate minimum credits, gain mandatory overtime on workdays over 10-12 hours and weekend premiums and vacation pay and enact a “clear and fair reporting structure for discrimination and/or harassment.” These postproduction workers have never before had union representation, the union says.

“We stand united and committed in our efforts to form a union, and we are ready to take this fight to the next stage,” postproduction supervisor and group member Chris Clemente said in a statement. “The AMPTP has chosen to take an anti-union position. We remain hopeful that they will recognize our union and value the contributions we make to the industry.”

In a statement, AMPTP spokesperson Jarryd Gonzales said, “The AMPTP and its member companies strongly respect the rights of all employees under federal labor law to decide whether to be represented by a union.” He added that “For nearly three-quarters of a century, federal law has provided a secret ballot election process by which a union can become certified as the collective bargaining representative of employees” and that this process allows workers to “freely” make a decision on the union. “The CWA obviously prefers to dispense with this democratic process, instead choosing to brand those who stand by the secret ballot election process as ‘anti-union.'”

Gonzales continued, “The CWA’s unwarranted criticism of the AMPTP is at odds with the democratic principles endorsed by former United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, an ardent supporter of secret ballot elections, who called them ‘the most satisfactory — indeed the preferred — method of ascertaining whether a union has majority support.’ The AMPTP stands with Chief Justice Warren in whole-hearted support of the democratic principle that a secret ballot election is undeniably the most reliable means of determining the true democratic will of employees.”

If successful in becoming certified in an NLRB election, the Post Production Guild would exist separately from IATSE Local 700, the Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG), which bargains on behalf of editors, engineers, recordists, sound editors, story analysts and others in postproduction roles. The Post Production Guild is circulating a letter signed by nearly 500 members of the MPEG that states “we, the undersigned, are proud members of the Local 700, and we stand in support of our colleagues seeking union recognition.”

The letter further states, “If the AMPTP plans to file objections that these post production workers are considered supervisors who would be barred from organizing under the labor board’s rules, we as editors would view this as an alarming change in policy and definition of station.”

The CWA is also touting a letter addressed to AMPTP president Carol Lombardini signed by over 30 members of the New York City Council that alleges that “the AMPTP is claiming that these post production employees are supervisors who are therefore barred from union representation.” The letter continues that this is a “curious argument” because “many other titles who arguably direct work are represented, including directors, unit production managers, location managers, location supervisors, and many others.”

In the world of entertainment, the CWA represents workers in broadcasting via their National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) division and is aggressively pursuing unionization in the largely nonunion video games industry. The CWA points to their successful campaign to organize parking production assistants in New York, representing the first time PPAs had unionized, as one precedent for this campaign.

In December the CWA’s worker group at Vodeo Games became the first certified union at a video games studio in North America when it was voluntarily recognized by management; a group pursuing unionization at Activision Blizzard-owned Raven Software has not been voluntarily recognized, and is headed for an NLRB election.

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