Daytime Emmys Picket Averted After IATSE Strikes Deal Giving Guild Coverage to Non-Union Workers

With just hours to go before the Daytime Emmys, the international Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has reached a deal with the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to extend union benefits to the non-union workers hired for the ceremony.

“The IATSE has reached a deal to cover the workers on the Daytime Emmy Awards. Those workers will now receive the benefits of a union contract including their health and pension benefits,” the guild said in a statement Friday.

Prior to the deal, IATSE was considering pickets outside the ceremony to protest NATAS’ use of non-union labor. This could have become a ballooning crisis for the Television Academy, as the Writers’ Guild of America advised members on Friday not to attend the ceremony if it meant crossing picket lines, according to Deadline.

The deal is a demonstration of strength by IATSE and by extension Hollywood’s unions amid the industry’s continuing recovery from the double strike of 2023. The strikes, which began because studios abruptly quit negotiating for new contracts first with WGA and then with SAG-AFTRA, shut all industry business down for nearly 6 months.

It also comes as IATSE continues to negotiate with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios, for a new contract of its own.

The guild’s current contract expires on July 31, and it has already declared that there will be no extensions beyond that date. Those talks were extended again on Thursday after ending on Wednesday without a deal.

There’s no exact date as of this report, but talks are expected to resume next week. Meanwhile, this month the guild will also resume talks with AMPTP on the Area Standards Agreement, covering productions outside of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.

But AMPTP is also set to start negotiations with Teamsters Local 399 next week, and the studio group is trying to decide if it will conduct simultaneous talks or wait until later this month to pick up with IATSE.

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