Why do women in skilled Hollywood jobs earn $ 16 an hour?
Script and production coordinators, usually women, earn less than a living wage in Los Angeles, according to IATSE Local 871. Shipley says a 2018 study commissioned by IATSE 871 titled Reel Equity shows workers in these positions are paid an average of $ 16 to $ 17 an hour  below the living wage in Los Angeles  even with years of experience. Its also a harsh reality that Shipley herself has had to contend with despite many years of experience in the industry. Shipley is an Artistic Department Coordinator (ADC) who has worked for 18 years on television shows like ABCs Roseanne and is Vice President of IATSE Local 871, which represents ADCs as well as the coordinators of ABC. artistic production, assistant scriptwriters and script coordinators. These positions, although less well known than department heads or newsrooms, are key positions in productions and can help find the next generation of screenwriters and production designers. These are also positions mostly occupied by women. If Hollywood is serious about diversity and fairness, Marisa Shipley says the industry needs to take seriously how it pays women who rank among the industrys lowest-paid workers on set. cinema and television. IATSE 871 Vice President Marisa Shipley at the 2020 Womens March. Shipley, like many art department coordinators, has worked for years in the industry but only makes $ 17 / hour with a grueling production schedule (With l courtesy of Marisa Shipley  In the entertainment industry, we go from project to project, and we are supposed to have downtime to take care of our family and to recover mentally and physically after weeks of work days of 12 hours or more, he said. said Shipley. But that downtime is taken away when you get paid so little. Personally, I have constantly jumped straight from job to job, and its an unbearable pace, but its the only way for me to pay rent with this hourly wage. And if its time for a change, its now. The IATSE is in talks on a new core deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood studios, with the existing contract due to expire in late July. Talks were scheduled to resume on July 6, but were postponed as AMPTP is currently in talks with all major Hollywood guilds over potential changes to the industrys COVID-19 security protocols. Due to the ongoing nature of the talks, IATSE and AMPTP declined to comment for this story. But Local 871 is using the talks to raise awareness of the issue of wage disparities facing its members through the #IALivingWage social media campaign. What started as a single day of hashtag-building has now grown into a series of personal social media stories that involved members of various IATSE locals, as well as members of the Writers Guild. . At our last bargaining meetings, long-time member Andrea Friedland spoke out and shared her own experience and the experience of assistant production coordinators who were unable to make it to bargaining meetings. We will share some of their statements. pic.twitter.com/r3llhd6VBP  IATSE Local 871 (@ Local871) July 8, 2021  Historically, screenplay coordinators and art and production coordinators have been among the first roles open to women on film sets outside of camera actresses, with IATSE 871 founded in 1958 to represent screenwriters.  or as they used to be called in a world controlled by men. industry, script girls. But today, the positions represented by 871 have become much more than assistants for directors and screenwriters and have become essential to ensuring a smooth transition from pre-production to filming. Script coordinators should ensure that there are no errors in the script or in communicating scene details to the production crew, said the writer and member of the IATSE Amy Thurlow. If a scene, for example, is shot during the day but the script says the scene is supposed to be shot at night or there was an error in the script about the time of day, then the production must do covers that cost thousands.   Despite this vital work, the minimum hourly rate for screenplay coordinators under the current base agreement between IATSE and the studios is $ 17.64, compared to the hourly rate of $ 90 negotiated by the Writers. Guild of America for editors. Likewise, artistic department coordinators have an hourly minimum of $ 16.82, 62% less than the minimum of $ 44.25 for an assistant artistic director. A 2018 study commissioned by IATSE 871 found that the average salary of its members is significantly lower than that of their guild counterparts. Its a fight weve been waging since 2000 and one that really intensified five years ago when editorial assistants joined our local, said Patric Abaravich, IATSE 871 sales representative. t is a growing wage inequality that must be corrected now.   This entry-level term is also one that 871 members are trying to combat. Abaravich says there is a false assumption that editorial assistants and ADCs are entry-level jobs, even though it takes years as a production assistant to get such a position. To combat this and other misconceptions, as well as to raise awareness of the low wages faced by so many in the industry, IATSE members launched a social media campaign called #IALivingWage, inviting members to to present their personal stories of how they had to struggle to make ends meet despite years  sometimes over a decade  of experience in their position and never seeing upward mobility in their careers. As part of this campaign, Thurlow, Shipley and 871 other members stress that the financial security of these coordinators and assistants is essential to create a pipeline for the next generation of women and people of color who will become writers and heads of departments. . By raising salaries, studios would allow people from poorer backgrounds  often POCs  to gain a foothold in the industry and move up the ranks. Its the equity part of diversity, equity and inclusion, Thurlow said. Even being able to have a credit card for a living is a privilege in our business. You shouldnt need to have a well-off family as a safety net to be able to take the risks necessary for a career in this industry, and by not doing so, Hollywood is excluding people from less privileged backgrounds. Even with the struggles I face, I know that as a white woman with generational family wealth, I have the privilege of speaking out on this issue and in doing so potentially risking future employment, Shipley added. . Any diversity proposal that does not resolve this wage gap is not a serious systemic change.   There are hopes within 871 that their concerns about living wages will be addressed, especially now that they have state law behind their backs. The California Pay Act, which came into effect in 2017, requires men and women to be paid equally for substantially similar work. Shipley says this language fills in the gaps that have allowed wage disparities to persist. A regularly used legal argument is that equal pay means the same work in the same place, she said. But with this law, APCs and screenwriters are entitled to the same pay as assistant directors because both jobs involve taking care of the logistical details of a production.  Through the #IALivingWage campaign, the needs of coordinators have reached the ears of some WGA members who are pushing showrunners to ensure that script coordinators and writing assistants receive salary increases appropriate to their workload. job. But 871 knows that widespread change will only occur if substantial minimum increases are guaranteed in the AMPTP contract. Fortunately, they have the whole guild on their side. I have been involved with IATSE for over 30 years and have never seen such a level of guild-wide organization behind a single problem, said Abaravich. We have received so much support from members of other locals who want this change. I think what weve been through with the pandemic over the past year has really made workers look at the value of their work and determine if they are really getting the pay they deserve. 