Since it was created in January, The Pitt was congratulated as remarkable for the way in which he revitalized the dramatic format of the hospital and depicts medical situations in an unusually precise manner.
Now, the show hinders another distinction: in a rare decision, its production assistants announce an attempt at unionization.
The support employees of the second season of the program asked for the voluntary recognition of a union and filed a request for an election with the National Labor Relations Board on Friday, The Hollywood Reporter learned. Their effort is the first supported by the production assistants United – a movement which aims to unionize this class of workers nationwide – to become public.
“This is the first time that we can say that steps and assistants have been syndical in a program like this in cinema and television,” explains the production organizer, who like the other leaders of the movement is a production assistant himself. “It’s huge.”
His group, which is affiliated with local section 724 of the Hollywood workers’ union, targeted just under 20 workers in the show, including all production assistants and other support employees on the set, such as personal and executive assistants.
“I think that a union will bring a lot of continuous and permanent progression,” said an assistant to support support in the show, who asked to remain anonymous. “We deserve a seat at the table and the unions are supposed to give their members a voice and make them heard.”
The workers involved, add crows, are impatient to negotiate salary increases, health and union retirement plans, recovery times (guaranteed rest periods) and meal penalties.
Said Alex Aguilar, secretary-treasurer of the local section 724 of Liuna, “This action reflects our conviction that creative work is an essential work and that all workers deserve the same rights, protections and collective power as any other worker.”
THR contacted Warner Bros. To comment.
The production assistants United say that a “supermajure” of the program assistants of the program signed union authorization cards. This has been accomplished, they say, because of the guerrilla organization tactics inspired in part by the success of the Union Drive of the Staten Island Fulfillment Center of Amazon.
For a few weeks, the organizers launched a tent outside a parking structure adjacent to the lot of Warner Bros. Where crew members and background players tend to park. Arriving from 4:45 a.m. and leaving until 8 p.m., the group says they started conversations with all kinds of crew members on The Pittwhich was easily recognizable because they wore scrubs (threaded by The Pitt The workers in case they are taken from the camera).
The first day was calm, explains the organizer Clio Byrne-Gudding, but on the second day, the crew members began to approach the tent seriously. The organizers launched a petition for the crew support and encouraged curious passers -by to discuss the APs on the advantages of unionization. “This is how we started to sow the organizational reader from here when we could not really be close to the whole,” explains Byrne-Gudding.
On July 16, the organizers had raised enough signatures on the union cards to have confident them, they say, that they had enough steps and assistants supporting their dynamism to win an official election of the Union. However, supporters say they hope that their employers will voluntarily recognize the union, thus bypassing the NLRB process.
The workers at the start of their career through the company will watch closely to see what is happening. Some animation production assistants were organized by The Animation Guild, while a certain number of independent sales assistants are represented by premises 111 of the production guild. But live, scripted entertainment remains a major non -unionized space for the steps.
Byrne-Gudding is convinced that he will not stay long. Friday, the group published a statement of support from its colleagues entertainment unions. And, once they have finished targeting Warner Bros. Based in Los Angeles, the group already plans to present its tent in other studios through the city.
“Partly, we knew that it was inevitable, because there have been many attempts in recent decades to unionize the APs and the assistants, and a few people who tried to do it in our tent,” they say. “The APs and assistants just want the same type of protection and material insurance as the members of the union have.”
