United States: threat of strike in Hollywood

In 128 years, the International Alliance of Stage Employees (IATSE) had never gone on strike, but its 60,000 members have had enough today (illustrative image).

MARIO TAMA GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP / File

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After being arrested for months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will Hollywood productions be brought to a halt by a giant strike?

IATSE, a union representing film and television technicians - from costume designers to editors to electricians - threatens to stop work next week if the studios don't make efforts on wages but also on the daily length of filming for these women and men in the shadows, without whom the dream factory cannot produce either films or series. 

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With our correspondent in Los Angeles,

Loïc Pialat

In 128 years, the International Alliance of Stage Employees (IATSE) has never gone on strike.

But its 60,000 members have had enough.

On a dedicated Instagram account, technicians mention 136 days of work in a row, regularly forgotten lunch breaks and salaries barely above the minimum of 13 euros an hour in California.

The success of

streaming

Two main reasons: the need to catch up with the delay caused by Covid-19 first, the success of

streaming

 then.

In the days of traditional television, a season stretched from September to June and left teams resting periods during the summer.

But with Netflix and the like, the viewer got used to having new content all year round.

In addition, certain collective agreements were also negotiated before the advent of

streaming

platforms

with less favorable conditions - salary in particular -.

A billion dollars

For their part, the producers believe they have formulated satisfactory proposals in the context of a pandemic.

In 2007, the writers' strike shut down Hollywood for 100 days, costing the local economy $ 1 billion.

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