All member locals of Hollywood Basic Crafts have agreed to a tentative new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, averting a strike just three days before the July 31 deadline.
“After a long last 48-hours, we are proud to report that ALL Hollywood Basic Crafts Locals have reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP late this evening,” Teamsters Local 399, speaking on behalf of member locals, said Saturday in a statement.
“The basic crafts spent today working closely with our member-led negotiating committees to finalize a deal with the AMPTP that we can now say is being unanimously recommended by our member-led bargaining committees.”
The announcement comes less than a day after Basic Crafts presented a counter to what AMPTP called its “last, best and final offer.” Details about the deal will be made available Sunday afternoon following a general membership meeting of Teamsters Local 399, the union said.
Insiders told TheWrap last week that a major sticking point was wages, specifically long-standing pay disparities that made it difficult for Teamsters’ members to keep up with the cost of living in Los Angeles.
AMPTP for its part used the term “last, best and final offer” during talks with the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA last year in talks to end the double strike. Basic Crafts meanwhile had vowed it would not extend contract talks beyond July 31, when the current contract expires — at which point a strike would go into effect immediately.
In striking a new deal, Basic Crafts follows IATSE, whose members ratified a new contract by a supermajority of 86% on July 18. While there were objections among some IATSE members that the contract did not go far enough to curtail artificial intelligence automation of a variety of IATSE-covered jobs, members of the union who voted yes told TheWrap they did so due to gains in other areas such as wages and safety, along with the pressure to return to work due to the financial toll of last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Collectively, the Teamsters and Basic Crafts represent 7,600 entertainment workers. That includes drivers, dispatchers, electricians, caterers, laborers, cement masons, plumbers, animal trainers and casting directors, among others.
The other unions in the Basic Crafts are the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 40, Laborers International Union of North America Local (LIUNA) 724, United Association Plumbers Local (UA) 78 and Operating Plasterers & Cement Masons International Association (OPCMIA) Local 755.
More to come…
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