Los Angeles
CNN
—
After a yr through which each actors and writers hit the picket strains, one other Hollywood strike could also be on the horizon.
The American Federation of Musicians (AFM), a union representing musicians throughout the leisure business, will start negotiations Monday on a brand new contract with the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers (AMPTP).
The union mentioned it’s in search of a deal to raised displays the present state of streaming media. The AFM can be in search of AI safety, elevated wages, well being care enhancements, improved working circumstances and residual funds for streaming content material.
In response to the AFM, musicians who report on soundtracks make 75% much less on streaming content material because of much less residual revenue. “The leisure business has basically shifted,” the union mentioned in a information launch. However musicians “are usually not being compensated accordingly for streaming media.”
AFM’s president and chief negotiator Tino Gagliardi advised CNN the union “goes to be ready to do no matter it must get what we have now to have, with a view to make the lives of musicians higher.”
“Our musicians have been dealing with pay cuts during the last yr due to the change of the enterprise mannequin and the way our product is distributed,” Gagliardi mentioned. “We’ve acquired to repair that, in order that our people can proceed to purchase diapers, pay lease, pay mortgages and have an honest wage with an honest retirement.”
The AFM says it has roughly 70,000 members in america and Canada. Members embody instrumental musicians working in orchestras, bands, golf equipment and theater who create music for movie, tv, commercials and different mediums.
“Music is what provides our favourite motion pictures and reveals their soul, and these employees anticipate and need to be handled pretty and given the contract they’ve earned,” Gagliardi mentioned. “We’re going into these negotiations in good religion, and we hope the AMPTP is doing the identical.”
The AMPTP advised CNN in an announcement it “appears ahead to productive negotiations with the Federation, with the purpose of concluding an settlement that can guarantee an lively yr forward for the business and acknowledge the worth that musicians add to movement photos and tv.”
The AFM will maintain a information convention, rally and musical efficiency early Monday in entrance of the AMPTP headquarters within the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks.
The upcoming negotiations by the AFM come after lengthy strikes in 2023 by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Display screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Tv and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The WGA strike lasted almost 5 months and the SAG-AFTRA strike lasted almost 4 months.
And the AFM will not be the one union within the leisure business which could strike in 2024. The Worldwide Alliance of Theatrical Stage Workers (IATSE), which represents greater than 170,000 manufacturing crew members, will see its contract expire in July. Matthew Loeb, the guild’s president, has not dominated out a strike.
“Persons are able to struggle and the studios could be ill-advised to imagine that they’ve weakened us to the purpose the place we will’t,” Loeb mentioned earlier this month.
As a result of dimension of the IATSE and the need of crew members for manufacturing, a prolonged strike may very well be devastating for the studios and the California financial system following the pandemic and the strikes of 2023.
“All of our Hollywood people had been hurting,” Gagliardi says. “We’re all on this collectively, and we’re all preventing for a trigger.”