April Contract Negotiations

It appears we will be negotiating a new Animation Guild contract in April ...

We were contacted by the AMPTP several days ago, and arranged to meet in the middle part of the month. This is, of course, tentative, because:

The IATSE-AMPTP negotiations for a new basic agreement will be happening the third week of March. as always with these things, there is no guarantee that those negotiations will be done by the time our dates roll around.

This would likely bump our dates back, since the IA negotiates the health and pension benefits in the contract, and TAG negotiates terms specific to our local contract. As long as I've been around, we don't sit down to talks until health and pension pieces are finalized.

(The IA and producers exchange contract proposals early next week, with the first three weeks of March earmarked for local and general negotiations. There will be twenty-three IA locals negotiating first, then the Basic Agreement talks will happen. These are al under the umbrella of "Basic Agreement Contract talks*.")

As for us, TAG sent out an e-mail and contract survey about contract proposals to active TAG members last week. We'll be collating the results, drafting proposals, and forming our negotiating committee over the next month or so.

* The Animation Guild was kicked out of the Basic Agreement's bargaining unit back in 1982, when the producers decided we were overly frisky with strike activity. We've negotiated separately ever since.