After an additional day of bargaining, the Motion Picture Editors Guild reached a preliminary deal with the studios.
IATSE Local 700 finished up bargaining on craft-specific issues Friday, becoming the ninth of 13 west coast studio locals to wrap up talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
“We debated proposals and priorities; sometimes we reached a consensus easily and sometimes we disagreed. We presented our differing views with passion, but always approached the task from a place of mutual respect,” MPEG National Executive Director Cathy Repola wrote in a memo to members on Friday.
It took five days of talks for the Editors Guild to reach an agreement with the AMPTP. The guild had initially scheduled four days of bargaining during the last week of March before returning Friday for one additional day.
The deal also comes as DreamWorks Animation Production Workers unionized under both the Editors Guild and the Animation Guild last week.
IATSE has reserved this week for caucusing before one additional week of negotiations is scheduled to begin on April 15. After caucusing, Locals 44 and 705 will also start negotiations on that Monday, with Local 884 slated to start later that week as well. Local 728 is also still in the midst of negotiations with the AMPTP, also anticipating to wrap craft-specific talks by the end of that week.
So far, things appear to be going smoothly as local-specific talks reach their end. Sources tell Deadline that talks have been “cooperative” as both the IATSE locals and the AMPTP have been “responsive and sincere” in their proposals.
General talks on IATSE’s Basic Agreement are slated to begin on April 29. Those talks will include issues that impact all members including wage increases, pension and health contributions, artificial intelligence, job security and residuals.
