Directors Guild places off talks with Hollywood studios

In a change from its common apply in recent times, the Directors Guild of America has determined to not go into contract talks early, and can as an alternative wait till later this spring, nearer to when its bargaining settlement with Hollywood studios is ready to run out.

In a press release to its 19,000 members Saturday night, the union mentioned its 80-person negotiating committee had unanimously determined it was not in its curiosity to start negotiations nicely prematurely of its contract expiration on June 30. In lots of the bargaining rounds for the reason that final Hollywood strike in 2007, the DGA has gone earlier than the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, setting the benchmark for the opposite unions. This time, the guild mentioned it’s going to negotiate solely when it believes it’s going to win one of the best deal.

“At this point the studios are not yet prepared to address our key issues,” the union negotiating committee’s chair Jon Avnet, and co-chairs Karen Gaviola, Todd Holland and nationwide government director Russ Hollander mentioned in a joint assertion.

The determination highlights the gulf that exists between the studios and Hollywood employees over key points like wages and streaming residuals, a chasm some imagine is so extensive that it’ll result in the primary main leisure business strike in 15 years. The Directors Guild has, atypically, been vocal in current months about how tough it expects this 12 months’s contract negotiations to be.

“If the studios don’t deal with these points they know we’re ready to combat, “ the union informed its members. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios in bargaining, had no rapid remark.

The determination doubtlessly means the Writers Guild of America, the Hollywood union that has gone on strike most frequently, may be capable to set the tone for this 12 months’s bargaining as their contract expires in May, earlier than that of the DGA. The final time the DGA didn’t go first in negotiations was in 2011, and the final time the Writers Guild went first was in 2007.

The DGA mentioned that during the last 18 months it has been getting ready for bargaining by conducting analysis and consulting with business consultants. It additionally consists of preliminary conversations with studios to broach the important thing points for its members. It is because of these talks that the union mentioned it determined that studios weren’t prepared to handle their issues.

The union mentioned in its assertion that it has received a few of its greatest beneficial properties throughout negotiations by ready till nearer to the expiration of its contract.

It mentioned timing of the talks was not an important situation however whether or not the studios will deal with the areas its members are involved about — particularly wages, streaming residuals, security, inventive rights and variety.

The DGA has gone on strike solely as soon as, briefly, in its 87-year historical past, in 1987.