With less than two weeks to go until negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) begin on August 12, The Animation Guild (TAG) has issued a statement highlighting key issues impacting its members. The labor org points out that despite the contributions of animation workers to keeping the entertainment industry afloat during COVID-19 shut-downs, they continue to face threats to sustainable employment.
TAG highlighted the impact of generative AI, which it says “undermine[s] the human creativity that makes animation a unique and lucrative medium [and] has the potential to eliminate creative jobs on a devastating scale.” The Guild partnered with CAA and CVI Economics earlier this year to conduct a gen AI impact study, which found that the tech could potentially disrupt 29% of animation jobs.
The union is also concerned by the significant layoffs hitting the industry with increasing frequency, as readers have seen in Animation Magazine coverage over the post-pandemic years. TAG shares that its anecdotal research and internal surveys present an estimated one-third of TAG’s animation workforce has been
laid off in the past year.
Outsourcing also remains a top concern in the animation community. TAG writes, ‘Los Angeles County animation studios continue to send work to studios in Asia and Europe. Some of those studios, in turn, try to hire L.A. workers at lower rates without the benefits and protections provided by the union.’
“Animation writing has become unstable gig work instead of a long career,” shared writer Madison Bateman in a testimonial. “Now with the prevalence of studios hiring freelance writers instead of staff writers, you’re making a quarter to half of what staff writers make, and you’re always having to find that next gig. That’s really hurting our craft and making it so that it’s no longer a job we can afford to do.”
TAG will be holding a Negotiations Kickoff Rally on Saturday, August 10, at 5 p.m. Register to attend at animationguild.org/Rally2024.
Visit TAGnegotiations2024.com for more information and future
updates.
In other entertainment union news, SAG-AFTRA announced the first picket activity of its recently announced video games strike, impacting studios signed to the Interactive Media Agreement. The actors’ guild stated:
‘SAG-AFTRA is striking this contract so that members working in interactive media (video games) can continue earning a living doing the job they love. Our members’ work and likenesses are being exploited by artificial intelligence, and video game companies have refused to offer a fair deal that addresses this existential threat.’
The SAG-AFTRA Video Game Strike kick-off picket will be held Thursday, August 1 from 9 a.m. to noon outside Gate 5 of WB Games. IMA committee members Sarah Elmaleh (Chair), Zeke Alton, Ashly Burch, Andi Norris and others will be joined by SAG-AFTRA leadership, including National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, welcoming members, labor allies and video game fans.
