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For touring professionals in the live music industry, healthcare has long been an elusive benefit. While local stagehands working in venues across the country have enjoyed employer-provided health insurance for decades through International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) contracts, their counterparts on the road — the audio engineers, lighting technicians, production coordinators, and other crew members who travel with touring shows — have been left to navigate the healthcare system on their own.
Now, IATSE is working to change that through an ambitious grassroots campaign to extend its National Benefit Fund to touring professionals, offering them access to the same healthcare and retirement benefits enjoyed by their venue-based colleagues.
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The disparity — what some stagehands call the tale of two crews — becomes starkly apparent when touring and local union members work side by side in the same venue.
“I’ll be in an arena for 20 plus hours working side by side with someone from the local IATSE, and we’re in the same situation, the same long hours, possibly a dangerous environment, yet they are covered,” says Ally Vatter, a production coordinator who has been touring for 21 years, currently with Nine Inch Nails. “They are insured. I pay out of pocket, but if I can’t afford that, then I won’t be insured.”
The consequences of this gap can be severe. In 2009, before the Affordable Care Act eliminated pre-existing condition exclusions, Vatter’s appendix burst while on tour. As an uninsurable 27-year-old, she was left with a $50,000 hospital bill and discharged from the hospital just a day and a half after surgery because she had no insurance. The artist she was working for organized an early crowdfunding effort that eventually paid off the debt, but the experience highlighted a systemic problem.
“We work so hard, and we work for millionaires, and we’re over here begging each other for help,” Vatter says, noting that crowdfunding campaigns for touring crew members facing medical crises remain common today.
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Nathan Honor, a sound engineer and member of IATSE Local 4 in Brooklyn and Local 100 on the East Coast, recalls his own pre-union touring days: “I broke my foot at one point and had to do an entire tour with a limp, with a bad foot, and never really dealt with it, and it had lasting repercussions.”
The irony, as Joseph Juntunen points out, is that a solution already exists. Juntunen, a special representative for IATSE who spent years touring with acts like Black 47 and Graham Parker before helping organize unions at Webster Hall and Brooklyn Steel, explains that the National Benefit Fund has been providing healthcare and retirement benefits to IATSE members across various entertainment sectors for decades.
“When an employer makes a contribution to that fund, that money belongs to the recipient. It belongs to the person that earns that money through their labor, and it goes with them wherever they go,” Juntunen says.
The fund currently serves the vast majority of IATSE’s more than 180,000 members who work in TV, film, Broadway, trade shows and venues. The touring initiative, which would extend access to an estimated 33,000 professionals working in the touring industry globally, is designed around the realities of touring work, which involves professionals potentially working for multiple employers throughout the year.
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Here’s how it would function: When an artist or management company agrees to participate, they make contributions to the National Benefit Fund on behalf of their touring crew members. These contributions then go into individual “cap accounts” that belong to the workers and accumulate across different tours and employers.
“If you do one tour for two months at the beginning of the year, that money goes into your cap account. If you do another tour three months later on the same plan, that money would go into that cap account,” Honor explains. “Every quarter, there is a qualifying period where you choose your level of coverage, and then money is deducted from that cap account to buy your health insurance.”
Critically, the money stays in the worker’s account even during gaps between tours. “Even if no employer makes a contribution for two years, that money stays in your cap account, and you can use it to buy health insurance,” Honor says.
The system offers flexible tiered coverage options, ranging from catastrophic coverage for younger, healthier workers to premium “Cadillac” plans for those with families or greater healthcare needs. Workers can also pay out of pocket to upgrade their coverage if their cap account contributions aren’t sufficient for their desired plan level.
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Healthcare is provided through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the plan’s large membership base allows for competitive rates that individual touring professionals could never achieve on their own.
Unlike traditional union initiatives, the health plan is entirely voluntary — no employer or worker is mandated to participate. Instead, IATSE is building support through a grassroots campaign, encouraging touring professionals to have conversations with their employers about joining the program.
“The touring industry is very big and broad, but it’s also small in the way that there’s a big word-of-mouth system that happens,” Vatter says. “Word travels quickly.”
The campaign is targeting artists, managers and tour managers — the key decision makers who control touring budgets. A town hall for interested parties is planned, and committee members have been working to spread awareness across the industry.
“We’re not looking to start fights with the employers. We’re not looking to have adversarial relationships,” Juntunen emphasizes. “We’re looking to work together to build a more sustainable, healthy touring industry.”
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The ultimate vision is for healthcare contributions to become a standard line item in touring budgets, much like they already are for venue work. If major promoters like Live Nation or AEG were to adopt the program across their tours, it could rapidly become an industry standard.
“We think this is really an opportunity for artists and management to put their money where their mouth is and help the people who are making the show,” Honor says.
According to Juntunen, the response so far has been encouraging. “The conversation is expanding rapidly, and we are in active discussions with several teams right now for next year’s touring cycle,” he says.
For touring professionals who have spent their careers without the basic security that their venue-based counterparts take for granted, the initiative represents more than just healthcare — it’s recognition of their essential role in the industry.
“This is the first time that someone extended an olive branch to the touring industry and said, ‘Hey, we see you. We understand we’re working right there with you, and we really want to make sure that you guys are safe and covered and taking care of yourselves as well,’” Vatter says. “Because in the end, we have the same goal, right? It’s to get that show up and make it work.”
As Honor notes, touring is “a very high impact business” where veteran crew members often reach their 40s, 50s, and 60s with health problems they can’t afford to treat and no retirement savings. “Not a day goes by at work that you don’t meet somebody who’s been touring for 20, 30, 40 years, and they don’t have anything saved,” he says.
Members of the American Federation of Musicians voted to ratify the union’s agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The agreement, which covers basic theatrical motion picture and basic television motion picture contracts, gives musicians streaming residuals for the first time, as well as protections against artificial intelligence, according to AFM. In addition to […]
The American Federation of Musicians has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers as of Friday.
The agreement, which concerns basic theatrical motion picture and basic television motion picture contracts, comes with “historic breakthroughs” on streaming residuals and protections against AI, according to AFM. The agreement is unanimously recommended by the bargaining committee.
While AFM leadership said they could not comment on the exact details in the contract, they confirmed that the tentative deal language includes streaming residuals for musicians for the first time.
“This agreement represents a major win for musicians who have long been under-compensated for their work in the digital age,” said AFM International President and Chief Negotiator Tino Gagliardi. “We have secured historic breakthroughs in streaming residuals, established critical guardrails against the misuse of AI, gained meaningful wage increases and other important gains. This agreement represents a watershed moment for the artists who create the soundtracks for countless film and TV productions.”
The tentative agreement must be approved by AFM International Executive Board and then will next be submitted for ratification by roughly 2,000 members working under the contracts.
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The deal came after a first round of negotiations from Jan. 22 through Jan. 31 and then a second round that began Feb. 21 and lasted until the early hours of Feb. 23. The negotiations took place at the Sherman Oaks offices of the AMPTP.
AFM held a rally outside the offices on the first day of negotiations, with members from several other entertainment unions attending to show their support. The tentative agreement comes just ahead of the March 4 start date for negotiations between the AMPTP and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the Hollywood Teamsters.
“I want to congratulate our AFM Fair Share for Musicians bargaining unit members for their unwavering commitment to fighting for a contract that fairly compensates them for their invaluable contributions to film and TV and protects them in the ever-changing film and television industry,” Gagliardi concluded. “We were not alone in this negotiation, and we were proud to have the full backing of fellow unions: SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America, IATSE, and the Teamsters. It was yet another powerful reminder that when we have solidarity in the labor movement, we can achieve great things. We also would like to thank Carol Lombardini, president of the AMPTP, as well as the AMPTP and its member companies, for helping bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
After negotiating a new contract with film and TV producers for the last 10 days, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the 70,000-member union that represents musicians in orchestras and on-air performances, has “not resolved our core issues” and will continue negotiations later this month, according to a statement put out Monday (Feb. 5) by Tino Gagliardi, the union’s international president and chief negotiator.
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“The time is now,” Gagliardi tells Billboard over Zoom. “The business model has changed, and the way we are compensated needs to reflect that.”
Echoing the Hollywood writers and actors unions, which went on strike for months in 2023 before resolving their contracts with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP), the AFM identified its top issues as higher compensation, improved streaming residual payments, better healthcare and protections against artificial intelligence (AI). To the latter issue, Gagliardi said in Monday’s statement that AI protections are necessary “so our sound and/or image cannot be captured or used without consent, credit, and compensation.”
Gagliardi adds to Billboard: “I’m going to continue to fight and we’re going to continue our argument for fair treatment for musicians until we actually come to a deal. Am I confident we’re going to get one? I’m never confident. It’s up to them to show me that they’re willing to make a deal.”
AMPTP reps did not respond to requests for comment.
Members of the Writers Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and other Hollywood unions have been supporting the AFM since contract negotiations began with a Jan. 22 rally at the offices of the AMPTP in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
The writers and actors unions’ 2023 agreements with the AMPTP make Gagliardi hopeful for a timely AFM deal. “The solidarity in the entertainment guilds is very solid this time around,” he says, “unlike some of the issues we’ve had in the past.”
At the January rally, Teamsters Local 399 secretary-treasurer Lindsay Dougherty told a crowd of union supporters: “We learned a hard, long lesson last year that we had to be together since day one. That’s going to be the difference going into this fight for the musicians, is that we’re all together in this industry.”
Negotiations will resume Feb. 21 and Feb. 22, according to Gagliardi.
The leader of the American Federation of Musicians proclaimed that Hollywood labor is “in a new era” as dozens of members of various entertainment unions came to the doorstep of studio labor negotiators in support of the start of his union’s contract negotiations on Monday.
As an early drizzle that morning turned into driving rain, members of the Writers Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and Teamsters Local 399 rallied in front of the Sherman Oaks offices of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers with picket signs, and a few umbrellas, in hand. To AFM‘s chief negotiator and international president Tino Gagliardi, this kind of unity for musicians was unlike anything he’d seen in his time in union leadership. “We’re in a new era, especially in the American labor movement, with regard to everyone coalescing and coming together and collaborating in order to get what we all need in this industry,” Gagliardi told The Hollywood Reporter. “Together we are the product, we are the ones that bring the audiences in, that controls the emotion, if you will.”
The program — which featured music performed by AFM brass musicians and speeches from labor leaders including Teamsters Local 399 secretary-treasurer Lindsay Dougherty, Writers Guild of America West vice president Michele Mulroney and L.A. County Federation of Labor president Yvonne Wheeler — took place hours before the AFM was scheduled to begin negotiations over new Basic Theatrical Motion Picture and Basic Television Motion Picture contracts with the AMPTP in an office just steps away.
The message that speakers drove home was sticking together in the wake of the actors’ and writers’ strikes that shut down much of entertainment for half a year the previous summer and fall. The 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes saw an unusual amount of teamwork occur between entertainment unions, which the AFM is clearly hoping to repeat in their contract talks. “We learned a hard, long lesson last year that we had to be together since day one. That’s going to be the difference going into this fight for the musicians, is that we’re all together in this industry,” Dougherty said in her speech.
The WGA West’s Mulroney addressed the musicians present, saying that her members “never took your support for granted” during the writers’ work stoppage. She added, “The WGA has your back just as you had our backs this past summer.” Though he wasn’t present at Monday’s event, SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland sent a message, delivered by his chief communications officer, that “the heat of the hot labor summer is as strong as ever.”
The AMPTP said in a statement on Monday that it looks forward to “productive” negotiations with the AFM, “with the goal of concluding an agreement that will ensure an active year ahead for the industry and recognize the value that musicians add to motion pictures and television.”
Though the AFM contracts under discussions initially expired in Nov. 2023, the writers’ and actors’ strikes that year prompted both sides to extend the pacts by six months. Top priorities for the musicians’ union in this round of talks include instituting AI protections, amplifying wages and greater streaming residuals.
For rank-and-file writers and actors who showed up at Monday’s rally, one recurring theme was repaying the AFM for its support during their work stoppages. SAG-AFTRA member Miki Yamashita (Cobra Kai), who is also a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, explained that during the actors’ strike she organized an opera singers-themed picket at Paramount, which AFM members asked to take part in. “Because of them, we had orchestra players and a pianist to play for us during our picket, and I’ll never forget how much that meant to me, that show of solidarity,” she said. “I promised myself that if they ever needed my presence of my help, that I would rush to help them.”
Carlos Cisco and Eric Robbins, both writers on Star Trek: Discovery and WGA members, worked as lot coordinators at Disney during the writers’ strike. They recalled AFM members providing a morale boost during the work stoppage by occasionally playing music on the picket lines. “The struggles that labor faces in this [industry] are universal, whether it’s the hours, the residual payments as we’ve moved to streaming or the concern about AI coming into various spaces. We have far more in common than separates us,” said Robbins.
The AFM’s negotiations are set to continue through Jan. 31. Though the AMPTP offices don’t often see labor demonstrations, Gagliardi says that as a former president of New York-based AFM Local 802, he staged rallies in front of employer headquarters with some frequency. “I did this on a regular basis,” he said. “It was about bringing everyone together to fight for a common cause, and that’s what we’re doing today.”
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
The owner of one of the country’s most recognizable independent venue companies has agreed to accept a petition on behalf of its bartenders, ID checkers, ticket collectors and floor staff to unionize.
Dayne Frank, president and CEO of First Avenue Productions which owns the famed First Avenue venue and operates six other venue locations in the Twin Cities area, was presented with petition from more than 200 employees earlier this month asking the company to recognize efforts to unionize as part of UNITE HERE Local 17, Minnesota’s hospitality workers’ union. UNITE HERE has about 300,000 members nationwide and is a member of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
“We recognize that our employees are a key to our success,” Frank said in a statement sent to Billboard, “and it is why we have continually worked to provide them competitive pay, health insurance for anyone working more than 25 hours per week, 401k matching contributions, and more. So when bartenders, service, and event staff expressed their desire to form a union, there was only one answer, which is why we will voluntarily recognize the union, and are committed to bargaining in good faith.”
Employees at First Avenue Productions, which include staff from 7th Street Entry, the Fitzgerald Theater, the Palace Theatre, the Turf Club, Fine Line and the Depot Tavern, began organizing earlier this year through the city’s Restaurant Opportunities Center as part of an effort to address staff disagreements over pay, scheduling and training.
On Nov. 2, more than 70% of the company’s employees voted in favor of moving forward with unionization through UNITE HERE. Frank is expected to begin contact negotiations with UNITE Here in the coming weeks.
“Bargaining in good faith will require everyone to look at the challenges we face as a whole, and how we can strengthen our workplace, incorporate more perspectives, and ultimately move forward together,” Frank said. “While this might be difficult, and will inevitably result in change, I am committed to working together to address those challenges.”
Frank is also a founding board member of the National Independent Venue Association and as the group’s former president led successful efforts to petition the federal government for billions of dollars in relief aid for thousands independent venues facing closure due to COVID-19, including those managed by First Avenue Productions which received more than $17 million from the Shuttered Venue Operator Grant program. The federal aid program is widely credited with preventing the collapse of the independent venue industry.
Bandcamp United, the Bandcamp employees union, accused Songtradr of unfair labor practices in a filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Sunday (Oct. 29). Epic Games announced that it was selling Bandcamp to Songtradr at the end of September. Subsequently, more than half of the Bandcamp staff was laid off, including all eight […]
Epic Games and Songtradr confirmed plans to let go of roughly half of Bandcamp’s workforce on Monday (Oct. 16), as the two companies finalized the sale of the popular independent music sales and streaming platform.
Epic Games first announced plans to sell Bandcamp to Songtradr — an online music licensing marketplace — on Sept. 28 amid a broad restructuring that involved laying off 830 employees, or about 16% of its workforce. In addition to divesting Bandcamp, the Fortnite developer also said it would spin off kidtech company SuperAwesome, a move that would impact 250 people in total.
An Epic Games spokesperson declined to comment on how many Bandcamp employees were terminated, but said impacted workers received notification of severance packages on Monday.
In a statement, Songtradr said Bandcamp’s operating costs have “significantly increased” in recent years and the job cuts, which were impacted all divisions, were necessary to “ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans.”
“After a comprehensive evaluation, including the importance of roles for smooth business operations and pre existing functions at Songtradr, 50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr,” according to the statement. “We are looking forward to welcoming Bandcamp into our musically aligned community.”
Songtradr said it will keep popular Bandcamp services, including “artist-first revenue share, Bandcamp Fridays and Bandcamp Daily.”
Employees of the independent music storefront had been attempting to unionize since March, a move prompted by Bandcamp’s 2022 sale to Epic Games. On Oct. 3, Bandcamp workers affiliated with the effort wrote Songtradr’s CEO asking that he recognize their union and extend offers to all current employees. The company ultimately stated that not all employees would receive offers to join Songtradr.
Bandcamp employees affected by Monday’s layoffs described disjointed communication from their new and outgoing employers about the job cuts.
“Officially laid off from bandcamp, after two weeks of waiting in limbo with many of my fellow colleagues,” according to a post by Atoosa Moinzadeh on X (formerly Twitter) shared on Monday. Moinzadeh wrote on her LinkedIn page that she was let go after working for 2.5 years as a social media manager and editor at Bandcamp.
Rochelle Shipman, whose LinkedIn page describes her as a vinyl representative at Bandcamp, wrote on X on Monday, “3 years at Bandcamp, nearly 100 records & an entire union later, and laid off without so much as a peep from (ex) leadership. Please continue to support artists. Buy music at every turn … Artists first forever.”
Additional reporting by Kristin Robinson.
Employees of Bandcamp sent a letter to Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire on Tuesday (Oct. 3) asking him to recognize their union, “extend [job] offers to all Bandcamp employees” and “maintain everyone’s current employment status,” including “current pay, working conditions, and benefits.” Songtradr, a music licensing platform, purchased Bandcamp from Epic Games last week.
“The integrity of the workers who build Bandcamp is a crucial aspect of the company’s ability to uphold its values,” Cami Ramirez-Arau, a support specialist, said in a statement. “Bandcamp’s core mission is best protected by retaining all workers and by those workers having a seat at the table.”
“We’ve been able to work effectively and directly with management at Epic Games to bargain collectively,” added Eli Rider, a data analyst. “We want to continue this process with Songtradr.”
A rep for Songtradr did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Epic Games acquired Bandcamp in March 2022. Roughly a year later, Bandcamp workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to authorize a union election. At the time, Rider told Billboard there was “a shift in our workplace conditions” after the sale.
“If you think about Bandcamp, it’s about paying artists fairly for the music that we love so much,” Rider added. “So, the workers that build the site and support it also would like to have fair and transparent wages.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Bandcamp employees said their union, Bandcamp United, was recognized in May and began bargaining with Epic Games in August. But the negotiations were not complete by September 28, when Songtradr announced it was taking Bandcamp off Epic Games’ hands, potentially wiping out any progress in the talks. A rep for the union said it was not aware that Epic Games was planning to sell Bandcamp.
The employees union issued a statement on Wednesday saying that Epic had told them that Songtradr “would be offering positions to some Bandcamp employees but not all.” Adding to the feelings of uncertainty and disarray: Most employees “have had critical systems access revoked by Epic management and have been unable to do their jobs.”
Ed Blair, a support specialist, said in a statement that “Songtradr not immediately recognizing Bandcamp United is a worrying indicator that they have misunderstood the value of Bandcamp.”
“The workers who make up Bandcamp United are essential for the future of Bandcamp,” he emphasized.
Bandcamp United also noted in its letter to Wiltshire that it “has garnered extensive support from the Bandcamp user community – and the public more broadly.”
“Recognizing us,” the letter stated, “would go a long way to establishing goodwill for Songtradr.”
When Wiltshire spoke to Billboard following the announcement of the Bandcamp acquisition, he called Bandcamp “a great platform.” He added, “There’s not a need to change it into anything other than what it is.”
The last time film and TV screenwriters went on strike, for a hundred days in the winter of 2007 and 2008, production on shows and movies abruptly shut down, advertising plunged and pink slips were passed out. Freelance music supervisors like Julie Glaze Houlihan, whose credits include Malcolm in the Middle and Roswell, also felt the pain.
“My husband and I both were independent music supervisors, so the money just fell. We struggled,” she recalls. “We had savings and we dipped into it. We had three small children. It was a difficult time.”
Unlike actors, directors, music editors and other unionized professionals who would still receive contractual benefits in the event of a strike, music supervisors are a largely freelance group of specialists who lack employer-provided healthcare, paid leave and safety protections. So the supervisors are more vulnerable than many of their colleagues if the Writers Guild of America follows through with a walkout when its members’ contract with studios and networks expires May 1.
“We all care about the writers getting a fair deal. We’re all in it together,” says Houlihan, who recently supervised music for Glass Onion and is working on upcoming ESPN and MGM+ docuseries. “But if they strike, it’ll affect all of us. Other people have some type of safety net and we have nothing.”
The Writers Guild unions, east and west, represent 11,000 movie and TV writers and began negotiations March 20 for a three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Few expect a fast resolution over issues like higher compensation, more contributions to health and pension funds and improvements in workplace standards. Anticipating a strike, studios are rushing production schedules for existing shows.
A strike “would definitely be scary,” says Justin Kamps, who works on Grey’s Anatomy and Bridgerton. “If you can’t get the scripts written and the shows brought into post-(production), there’s not much you’re going to be doing as a supervisor. You’re going to be out of luck.”
A prolonged strike could narrow the opportunities for music synchs in shows and movies, which generated $318 million in 2022, or 2% of overall revenue, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. “The most obvious point is that if there is a strike, it’s going to put a hold on shows being put out, which means there’s no music being requested for shows,” says Sara Torres, synch and licensing supervisor for ASAP Clearances, which clears songs for TV.
Uncertainty has kicked in. “I’ve been meeting on a new project and they have been in a holding pattern, waiting to see what happens. They are not able to actually hire anybody until that is sorted out,” says Kier Lehman, a music supervisor whose recent works include Abbott Elementary and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. “Without having new things starting, it definitely would affect us and our income — if it goes on for a long time, I could see it having a big effect.”
Like everybody in Hollywood, music supervisors are scrambling to figure out where the money might come from in the event of a strike. Houlihan doubles as a music editor, an industry with its own unions, so she expects to receive certain benefits no matter what. Torres’ company emphasizes reality shows, which surged in the ratings during the last strike (including, notably, Donald Trump’s The Celebrity Apprentice); she suggests reality shows might temporarily dominate the synch business and indie artists might have more opportunities to place songs.
“People are always looking for music,” she says. “It’s just being able to pivot.”
Music supervisors are not unionized, but last October, a group of Netflix supervisors filed to certify their union with the National Labor Relations Board, seeking representation with the labor union the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE. Netflix opposed the move and the NLRB’s decision is pending. (Netflix reps did not respond to inquiries.) If the board rules in the supervisors’ favor, they can negotiate a contract with the streaming giant — “which would make a great precedent,” says Lindsay Wolfington, a music supervisor for shows including Virgin River and The Venery of Samantha Bird and has been active in the Netflix unionization efforts.
Laura Webb, who frequently works with Wolfington, says the supervisors want more reliable payment deliveries, cost-of-living increases and healthcare and retirement and pension plans — as opposed to relying on the gig economy. “We’re not paid by the studios that would allow us to have the same safety net that most employees get,” adds Joel High, president of the Guild of Music Supervisors. “We don’t have health insurance through anybody. We don’t have a 401(k). We’re basically left to our own devices, working from show to show and studio to studio.”
Supervisors say they’ll keep working on shows after writers have finished their work. “Most of our job is post-production, so hopefully things don’t change that much,” says Webb, who works on Wolf Pack, Monster High the Movie Sequel and others. Adds Lehman: “If there was a show that was already written, and just being finished, that becomes the complicated issue.”
For now, music supervisors remain hopeful the writers and studios will come to an agreement and avoid a strike, even as unionization is gathering momentum in the U.S., with workers from Amazon to YouTube Music filing for certification. “If there’s an atmosphere to strike in, it would be now,” Houlihan says. “Go, writers! I hope they don’t have to strike.”
