OPINION: Help music and film supervisors join unions

By ARIEH LEBOWITZ
Executive Director, Jewish Labor Committee

The International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has announced that 75 percent of film and television music supervisors have signed union authorization cards to form a union and become part of the entertainment union.

However, their employer organization, affiliated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), has announced it will not voluntarily recognize these authorization cards and will not begin negotiations with these workers’ unions of choice.

In response, IATSE is now mobilizing a national petition campaign to ensure that music supervisors are treated with the same rights and fairness as their unionized co-workers within IATSE.

All union members are asked to sign a petition in support of these music supervisors who are responsible for curating, securing/negotiating licensing for, and coordinating the use or creation of recorded music in service of a director’s or show runner’s vision and budget.

Many of these workers cited the pandemic and the hard-fought IATSE-AMPTP negotiations over the fall as a catalyst for wanting a union in the first place.

You can help by signing the petition at https://form.jotform.com/221765893475066.

WHAT THEY WANT
Music supervisors have joined together to:

• Be treated fairly and equitably compared to their unionized co-workers.
• Gain access to industry healthcare and retirement plans.
• Standardize pay rates to tamp down discrimination and pay disparities.
• Address structures that enable studios to delay workers’ pay for months at a time.
• Have a seat at the table to negotiate with employers in good faith.
• Win an enforceable and codified union contract.

By signing the music supervisors’ petition and demanding that the mega-corporate studios and streaming companies recognize their union, you will be helping our union brothers and sisters. Please sign today.