Teamsters Boss Lindsay Dougherty: One-on-One
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Nearly every writer and studio staffer I’ve spoken to has been self-soothing with the mantra “things will pick up starting in February or March.” Now, as February closes out, I’m not sure that’s actually happened. (Though if it has been going well for you, feel free to humblebrag at elaine@theankler.com.)
Nearly every writer and studio staffer I’ve spoken to has been self-soothing with the mantra “things will pick up starting in February or March.” Now, as February closes out, I’m not sure that’s actually happened. (Though if it has been going well for you, feel free to humblebrag at elaine@theankler.com.)
Today, we’re one week out from IATSE starting its negotiations over two contracts that impact 60,000 Hollywood crew members and stagehands — most of them in SoCal. Lest ye forget, they are also going to the bargaining table arm in arm with the Teamsters and other Hollywood Basic Crafts to discuss pension and health benefits collectively for the first time since 1988.
After examining IATSE’s near-strike in 2021 and its implications this time around, today we’re talking Teamsters. The legendary union played a key role during the WGA strike when its members refused to cross picket lines, shutting down productions — and forcing studios to notice. (The Teamsters cover everyone from drivers to animal wranglers to casting directors.)
I talk with Lindsay Dougherty, Local 399’s magnetic, foul-mouthed, Jimmy Hoffa-tatted union boss who fired up writers and performers at rallies last year with talk of solidarity and studio resistance (and calls for the “evil empire” AMPTMP to be “fucking extinct.” Ahead of negotiations, she says her members have “seen extreme frustration beyond our imagination,” but also tells me, “Ultimately, the goal for us as negotiators is to get a deal without a strike, and that’s exactly what we're going to aim for.”
In our frank conversation, Dougherty opens up about:
What she thinks is wrong with the AMPTP and its members
If she thinks the WGA and SAG-AFTRA will have their back
How their members “don’t feel appreciated” by employers
Her workers’ crisis of not making a living wage in Southern California
The boom-bust of job growth post-pandemic to today
How streaming residuals are linked to pension and healthcare
Also: Correspondent Manori Ravindran shares her preview of the London TV Screenings, i.e. the international upfronts.
Teamsters Local 399 reps around 6,500 people across a variety of trades in the motion-picture industry. The union’s 4,000 or so active members who are drivers, dispatchers, and wranglers have a contract expiring at the end of July, as do the 800 or so active location managers. (The contract governing about 500 casting directors, also covered by the Teamsters, ends September 30.) Local 399 starts bargaining pension and health benefits next week with the AMPTP, tabling its other specific issues until May, which is its usual negotiating cycle.
Dougherty, who is also the Teamsters Motion Picture Division director (and herself the daughter of a Teamsters boss), will lead the bargaining on behalf of her members. While the membership has its own concerns about pay equity and quality of life, some things do overlap with Hollywood’s writers and actors, even AI. (Autonomous vehicles are “very much a part of this conversation,” she told Vanity Fair last year.)
We spoke on Feb. 22, and our conversation here has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.
Elaine Low: What's important to your members working in Hollywood in this next round of negotiations?
Lindsay Dougherty: Overall, it’s not different from what most members and workers are wanting in the industry: compensation for the work that they’re doing — and increased compensation. There’s things that haven’t been increased in quite some time, or increased enough in terms of wages, and then overtime provisions and things of that nature that really are a part of their working conditions.
Working on a film set, or just working in this industry in general, it's abnormally long hours, in comparison to other industries . . . People are just stretched thinner in terms of not having enough staff in their departments.
This is not something that's happened overnight. It’s been going on for years. It’s just getting to a point where people want to be able to make a livable wage in Southern California, which is hard enough as it is. Enough is enough. At some point, I think that's where people have gotten to a point, especially post-Covid, having that assurance that they're gonna have a job or a career in this industry.
EL: How have barriers to entry to this industry been impacted over the last few years, especially post-Covid?
LD: It was very busy, obviously, in 2021 and 2022 [when production picked up after the 2020 pandemic shutdown]. So we had seen an influx in the industry in terms of the amount of content that was being produced . . . We saw increased membership. And now we’re not seeing that [amid the 2023 strikes and their aftermath]. A couple years ago, it was very easy for somebody to get in this industry, which is very rare. Now we have people that are struggling to decide whether or not they want to stay [because it] currently hasn’t been as stable.
EL: We've heard a lot about how streaming and the change in Hollywood’s business models have impacted writers and performers. What’s the direct impact on your members?
LD: We most recently agreed upon terms and conditions for streaming in our 2021 agreement. Prior to that, the studios had to negotiate each project with us, which they did not like, obviously. One of the biggest things for us — even currently having provisions in our agreement for streaming video on demand — is that we don't have the residual formula that we had for other supplemental markets.
You've heard from the writers and SAG and the DGA that, with this new technology, it was sold as being new and unreliable, so people agreed to less than what the going rate was for television or theatrical films. Same thing for the Teamsters and IATSE: We have this pension and health fund that is funded through residuals, and we need to dramatically increase that and capture these residuals that we're seeing evolve with the streaming platforms.
EL: Looking at sister union IATSE’s negotiation cycle three years ago, it had a really strong strike authorization vote, but then didn't wind up striking. It seems to be a really different environment this time around, just coming off two strikes. Do you feel there’s a sea change in the way Hollywood perceives organized labor?
LD: When IATSE took the strike authorization vote . . . those issues haven't really changed. At the time safety and obviously inflation were impacting the workers. I don't think that's gone away. It’s gotten worse, obviously, because the issues with safety haven't been fully addressed, even with the new provisions in all of our contracts. Then, in addition to that, inflation happened in more than just one year, and then people have been, again, impacted by the strikes.
So we’ve seen extreme frustration beyond our imaginations, because of what just happened in this industry for the last four years, beginning with Covid. Our members or even the workforce on set don’t feel like they’re really appreciated by their employers. They’re so far apart from the CEOs and the people that are actually making the decisions. Unless you’re on the ground working on a production, no one can really understand what our members go through or what any industry worker goes through.
EL: Speaking of the major corporations — and the organization that represents them at the bargaining table — I remember last year at the WGA rally at the La Brea Tar Pits, you had called for the AMPTP to be “fucking extinct.” What do you find problematic about that organization?
LD: The way that bargaining has happened for all of the unions in Hollywood since the inception of AMPTP has not gone well. They have been really good at not only dividing the unions, but also just collectively, they’re so strong. They make up 95 percent of the world's media.
It was difficult actually bargaining with them. If one says, “No,” then they all say “No.” It's a two-way street and bargaining — you're supposed to negotiate. It’s not a negotiation when we're just told “No, no, no” all the time, which is essentially what just happened with the Writers Guild as well as SAG, and they had to strike. They would not have gotten what they got if they did not strike.
It's unfortunate, because there’s lots of industries out there where an employer, or even a multi-employer unit, can bargain with unions and get a deal done. Both parties don't necessarily leave bargaining and say, “Oh, I got everything I wanted.” That's not how it works. But for us as the union, it’s so hard to get anything in our agreements that is a minor change, or anything that can help our members move forward in a better way, whether it’s increased wages or [better] working conditions. The problem is, ultimately, their room is divided. You have two different types of companies in that room. None of them like each other. So it's hard to get anything done.
EL: Lastly, during the strikes last year, there was a lot of support for the WGA and SAG-AFTRA from the Teamsters, IATSE and other unions. If either the Teamsters or IATSE come to a strike this time around, how are you feeling about the writers and actors having your backs?
LD: Look, hopefully, it doesn't come to a strike. I believe that we can make a deal with the employers. But I would say even right now, in preparation of negotiations, they're right alongside us. We've been meeting with them, talking to them. They're there. They're supporting us. And this rally that we have coming up [on Sunday, March 3] prior to our negotiations, the Writers Guild, DGA and SAG-AFTRA will all be there.
I still talk to those chief negotiators all the time. We meant what we said: We have to be together moving forward, because clearly, our members have a lot of the same issues. Different classification, different pay scales, but ultimately, everybody's trying to do the same thing, which is: Do their job well in an industry they love so much and go home safely and be able to provide for their families.
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Now, from the U.K., our correspondent Manori Ravindran offers a preview of the London TV Screenings as it puts on its largest event ever . . . .
London’s calling. But will anyone answer? We’ll find out during this week’s series of international upfronts, known as the London TV Screenings. It’s the biggest edition to date, but the schedule’s crowded, and it’s coming at a hairy time for TV distribution.
In case you missed my take on the oversaturated TV market calendar from a couple weeks ago, London TV Screenings is organized by top international TV distributors — think All3Media International, Banijay Rights, Fremantle and ITV Studios, etc. — many of which are already based in the U.K. These guys used to fork over a load of cash to MipTV for pricey stands in Cannes in April and October. Now they skip the spring market entirely, and pocket those pounds to expand their own homegrown event, London Screenings.
This year’s edition welcomes a record 29 distributors, including companies that aren’t based in the U.K., such as Israel’s Keshet International and Turkey’s Eccho Rights. (Kind of sounds like . . . MipTV, right?)
But if you look beyond the razzle dazzle of the week’s presentations, you’ll see that most distributors are contending with a hugely challenging market. U.S. networks and streamers aren’t buying like they used to, opting instead to be far more selective — and cost-conscious. Meanwhile, the advertising downturn has vastly impacted the commissioning might of local commercial broadcasters, which affects the pipeline of content that populates distribution slates.
Banijay Rights CEO Cathy Payne’s London Screenings slate includes the BBC’s Wolf Hall follow-up The Mirror and the Light, starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell — a major coup for Banijay considering the series could have easily gone to BBC Studios — and the Sarah Jessica Parker-executive produced Ukrainian ballet documentary, Front Row.
London TV Screenings titles never used to be talent-heavy affairs, but this is now what’s required to cut through in the international marketplace. “We will see offers that come in for shows that are totally cast-contingent, whereas before they’d have had some input, but there was no actual approval over the cast,” says Payne. “Now, they’re thinking, ‘Okay, how am I going to get people to come here?’”
The Australian exec expects the big streamers on the ground in London, but warns that they’ll be laser-focused in their dealmaking. “We deal with a number of the global streamers, and their message to us is, ‘We need to break even in the next 12 months,’ so they’re looking at second windows, library acquisitions and supplementing what they've got. But even that is selective.”
Another thing buyers are looking for? Shows that won’t keep them up at night worrying about their jobs.
“It was great when everyone all of a sudden was getting these larger budgets and doing niche programming, but, you know, they're hard to finance,” shrugs Payne. “There's going to be less of those unique shows you either really love or you really don't.”
London TV Screenings runs from Feb. 26 to March 1. Click here for the full calendar of events.
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