IATSE and studios reach agreement on area standards

IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced Thursday that they had reached a tentative agreement on all aspects of the Area Standards Agreement, which is a companion agreement to the Basic Agreement, for which a separate tentative deal was reached on Tuesday evening.

The recent agreement between the union and representatives of studios and streamers means that, subject to ratification, there will be no IATSE strike this summer.

“Members and signatories will have the opportunity to review the agreement in the form of a detailed summary in the coming days, followed by a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) at a later date,” both sides said in a joint statement today.

The news comes after the two sides agreed to an agreement in principle Tuesday night, more than a month before the expiration of the contract, which covers the roughly 50,000 members of the 13 West Coast locals, mostly based in Los Angeles.

The interim area standards agreement was reached after two days of talks. The pact represents IATSE’s 23 chapters across the country and their 20,000 members.

One thing that remains for a clear Hollywood contract win is the collective bargaining negotiations between the AMPTP and the Teamsters. Those negotiations are expected to pick up steam ahead of the current contract’s July 31 expiration date. It’s unclear how far along those negotiations are, but both the IATSE and the Teamsters have previously signaled that they are not interested in extending their contracts beyond that date to allow for further talks.