IATSE Script Supervisors & Production Coordinators Local 161 Fighting For “Pay Equity” As Contract Talks Begin Monday

deadline.com:

IATSE Local 161, which represents East Coast script supervisors, production coordinators and accountants, will begin bargaining with the AMPTP on Monday for a new film and TV contract.

Pay equity is a major issue, said Dawn Mountain, the local’s president and chair of its contract negotiations committee. Mountain, a veteran production coordinator whose credits include Blue Bloods and The Code, noted that 66% of the local’s 1,400 members in 23 states are women, and that the local’s production coordinators are paid “significantly less” than department heads in male-dominated crafts. “This is an equity issue,” she told Deadline. “Our production coordinators, who function as heads of departments and run staffs of anywhere from five to 10 people, are the communications centers between the studios and what’s happening on set.

We manage a million different things, and we have a million different job titles and we’re not paid as heads of departments.

We’re not paid the same as a construction coordinator, for example, or a gaffer or a best boy. “For production coordinators, there is no-head-of-department rate.