More from Katie Kilkenny
AMC Theatres’ Workers at Universal City Location Attempt to Unionize
The latest coming attraction for Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood? A union election at the National Labor Relations Board. On Feb. 20, the crew union IATSE petitioned the NLRB for an election to determine if 44 staffers at the Universal City location will decide to join their ranks. The union is attempting to represent […]
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Writers Guild East Names Sam Wheeler as Executive Director
The Writers Guild of America East has named Sam Wheeler executive director after its previous staff leader announced his departure last fall. Wheeler, currently the national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, will start at the writers’ union on April 1. The union’s council announced the hire on Monday, saying that Wheeler’s […]
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SAG Awards: Fran Drescher Says 2023 Strike “Set the Trajectory for Many Generations to Come”
SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher resurfaced the union’s 118-day strike in remarks at the guild’s award ceremony on Saturday night, saying that union members “set the trajectory for many generations to come” during the work stoppage. Drescher called the actors union’s approximately 160,000 members the “champions” of the night in a speech during the 2024 Screen […]
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How Biden’s Labor Chief Is Thinking About AI’s Threat to Hollywood Workers
Attendees at the Screen Actors Guild Awards this year will not only be brushing shoulders with the stars of Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer and other awards hopefuls — but also a sitting member of President Biden’s cabinet. In a sign of the times in Hollywood, acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su will […]
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Adjunct Professors Vote to Unionize at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts
Adjuncts at the University of Southern California’s prominent School of Cinematic Arts have officially voted to unionize in a National Labor Relations Board ballot count on Friday. Two hundred and six workers voted to join the United Auto Workers union in the count, while 13 workers voted against unionizing. Out of around 281 eligible voters, […]
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Tyler Perry Puts $800M Studio Expansion on Hold After Seeing OpenAI’s Sora: “Jobs Are Going to Be Lost”
Over the past four years, Tyler Perry had been planning an $800 million expansion of his studio in Atlanta, which would have added 12 soundstages to the 330-acre property. Now, however, those ambitions are on hold — thanks to the rapid developments he’s seeing in the realm of artificial intelligence, including OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora, […]
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Is Hollywood Sleepwalking Toward Strike Three?
As the creator and administrator of a popular crewmember-focused social media hub, Diego Mariscal had a bird’s-eye view into the turbulent experience of his peers during Hollywood’s 2023 strikes. Typically, his account, Crew Stories, supplies its more than 128,000 followers across Instagram and Facebook with wry insider jokes about the below-the-line experience and lighthearted, behind-the-scenes […]
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Les Moonves’ Settlement With L.A. for Alleged Interference in LAPD Investigation Rejected by Ethics Commission
The Los Angeles Ethics Commission has unanimously voted to reject the proposed settlement by the city with Les Moonves, the former president and CEO of CBS. The settlement, made public last week, stated that Moonves tried to influence now-retired LAPD Captain Cory Palka amid a sexual assault investigation against the executive. The legal documents noted that Moonves […]
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During the Strikes, Actors Got Financial Grants. Now It’s Tax Season and Some Are Scrambling
In 2023, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation became a lifeline for many actors, distributing emergency financial aid to those who were struggling to make ends’ meet amid their union’s 118-day strike. A host of the union’s starriest members — George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey, among others — donated millions to the […]
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’20 Days in Mariupol’ Director Explains When a Documentary Is a “Civic Responsibility”
To Mstyslav Chernov, the unlikely journey that his film 20 Days in Mariupol has taken is “a big miracle.” First, there’s the fact that the Ukrainian war journalist and filmmaker even survived the production process at all, given that he and his team were filming in Mariupol, Ukraine, as Russia was laying siege to the […]
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Hollywood’s Influential Crew Whisperer Opens Up
In 2021, an Instagram account emerged that harnessed the frustration of crewmembers fed up with the status quo of sprawling hours on film and television sets. Debuting Aug. 1 of that year, IATSE Stories (@ia_stories) shared anonymous tales of workplace conditions from self-described crewmembers in stark black-and-white. The often-shocking stories shared on the page — ranging […]
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IATSE Puts Strike Authorization Vote On the Table As Negotiations Near
The major Hollywood crew union IATSE is planning on a potential strike authorization vote if deals on two major labor contracts are not reached around the time they expire on July 31. The union indicated that it is factoring the possible vote into its negotiations strategy in new contract campaign websites for its upcoming Basic […]
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