‘The Pitt’ Production Assistants Launch Landmark Unionization Drive (Exclusive)
The hit, Emmy-nominated show The Pitt is notching another distinction: In a rare move, its production assistants are announcing an attempt to unionize.
Support staffers on the second season of the show requested voluntary recognition for a union and filed a petition for an election with the National Labor Relations Board on Friday, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Their effort is the first backed by Production Assistants United — a movement that aims to unionize this class of workers nationwide — to go public.
“This is the first time ever that we can say PAs and assistants are unionizing on a show like this in film and TV,” says Production Assistants United organizer Ethan Ravens, who like other leaders in the movement is a production assistant himself. “It’s huge.”
His group, which is affiliated with the Hollywood laborers’ union LiUNA Local 724, has targeted a little under 20 workers on the show, including all production assistants and other on-set support staffers, like personal and executive assistants.
“I think a union is going to bring a lot of continuous, forward progression,” said one supportive production assistant on the show, who asked to remain anonymous. “We deserve a seat at the table and unions are supposed to give their members a voice and let them be heard.”
The workers involved, adds Ravens, are eager to negotiate wage increases, union health and pension plans, turnaround times (guaranteed rest periods) and meal penalties.
Says Alex Aguilar, the secretary-treasurer of LiUNA Local 724, “This action reflects our belief that creative labor is essential labor, and that all workers deserve the same rights, protections, and collective power as any other worker.”
THR has reached out to Warner Bros. for comment.
Production Assistants United claims that a “supermajority” of the show’s production assistants and assistants has signed union authorization cards. That was accomplished, they say, due to guerrilla organizing tactics inspired in part by the successful union drive at Amazon’s Staten Island fulfillment center.
For a few weeks, organizers have pitched a tent outside of a parking structure adjacent to the Warner Bros. studio lot where crew members and background actors tend to park. Arriving as early as 4:45 a.m. in the morning and leaving as late as 8 p.m. at night, the group says they’ve struck up conversations with all manner of crew members on The Pitt, who were easily recognizable because they were wearing scrubs (donned by The Pitt workers in case they are caught on camera).
The first day was quiet, says organizer Clio Byrne-Gudding, but by the second day, crew members began approaching the tent in earnest. The organizers started a crew support petition and encouraged curious passersby to chat up PAs on the benefits of unionization. “That’s how we started seeding the organizing drive from here when we couldn’t actually be close to the set,” says Byrne-Gudding.
By July 16, the organizers had amassed enough signatures on union cards to make them confident, they say, that they had enough PAs and assistants supporting their drive that they could win a formal union election. Still, supporters say they hope that their employers will voluntarily recognize the union, thereby bypassing the NLRB process.
Early-career workers across the business will be watching closely to see what ensues. Some animation production assistants have been organized by The Animation Guild, while a number of freelance commercial production assistants are represented by The Production Workers Guild Local 111. But live-action, scripted entertainment remains a major non-union space for PAs.
Byrne-Gudding is confident it won’t remain that way for long. On Friday the group released a statement of support from fellow entertainment unions. And, once they’re done targeting L.A.-based Warner Bros. projects, the group already has plans to pitch their tent at other studios across town.
“In part we knew this was inevitable is because there have been numerous attempts over the past few decades to unionize PAs and assistants, and a couple people who tried to do that came to our tent,” they say. “PAs and assistants just want the same sort of protections and material assurances that union members have.”