Casting Directors Vote to Ratify New Three-Year Contract

Katie Kilkenny

2 October 2024 at 2:27 pm·3-min read

New York and Los Angeles-based casting professionals have voted to ratify a new three-year agreement with studios and streamers.

The Teamsters Local 399, which represents the group alongside Local 817, announced on Tuesday that 91.85 percent of its bargaining unit voted to support the deal. The two Locals bargain on behalf of around 700 freelance casting directors, associate casting directors and casting assistants in entertainment.

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“Our Casting Teamsters have always been fighters. Since their original fight for representation in 2006 to now, this group continues to stand united and work collaboratively to understand how to better advocate for the art and craft of Casting, as well as the livelihood of those working in this career,” lead negotiator and Local 399 principal officer Lindsay Dougherty said in a statement. “I want to commend our member-led committee. They fought until the bitter end in these negotiations on behalf of all classifications, and this group has already begun laying a foundation for our next contract fight and the enforcement of their new agreement that lies ahead.”

In a statement an AMPTP spokesperson said the agreement “meaningfully addresses” the union’s major priorities. The spokesperson added, “The improvements in salary and wage rates included in this agreement ensure that studios can continue to attract and retain the premier creative talent that is the backbone of the motion picture industry.”

The union reached a tentative deal with the AMPTP on Friday afternoon, ahead of Monday’s contract expiration deadline, after eight days of negotiations. The labor side suggested at the time that it hadn’t gotten everything it had hoped for: The group stated that its negotiating committee had “fought until the bitter end.” Still, the negotiating committee unanimously recommended that members ratify the deal.

This year, the labor union advocated to institute minimum wage rates for casting directors, who previously self-negotiated their compensation, in the face of what it characterized as downward pressure on wages. “There has been such a decline and a decrease in casting director salaries and the way that we have been paid. Some casting directors are making less than what they were in the late ’80s and the early ’90s” in real dollars, Teamsters Local 399 casting director and negotiating committee member Sherry Thomas (Breaking Bad, The Righteous Gemstones), told THR in September.

The Teamsters Locals also sought to bargain minimum duration of employment language for casting directors, significantly elevated associate casting director compensation and standard union benefits for casting assistants, who unionized not long before negotiations began.

The new deal institutes first-ever wage floors for television casting directors: Starting on Oct. 6, casting directors must receive a minimum of $7,000 weekly for pilots and first episodes of a series or miniseries, $5,850 for pilots and first episodes of children’s programming and $4,500 weekly for subsequent episodes in the first two seasons. Casting directors working in film or non-episodic television projects will continue to self-negotiate their rates.

Associate casting directors, who already had minimum rates for episodic television projects, also will receive first-ever wage floors for film projects as part of the deal. Starting Oct. 13, associate casting directors’ minimums on all projects will be $1,820 weekly, representing a 21 percent wage increase from their previous episodic minimum.

Casting assistants’ first union agreement established a minimum wage rate of $21 an hour retroactive to Sept. 29, with double time after 12 hours worked and triple time after 15 hours worked in a single work day. Casting directors also will receive health and pension benefits and the same vacation days enjoyed by casting directors and associate casting directors.

The negotiations began on August 26, with Local 399 principal officer Lindsay Dougherty leading talks on behalf of the union and AMPTP president Carol Lombardini acting as chief negotiator for the AMPTP.

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