UPDATE, 4:35 PM: A strike today by dozens of workers at Deluxe Technicolor Digital Cinema is over – for now. After the walkout at around 11:30 AM and picket lines this afternoon, IATSE and a postproduction local, the Motion Picture Editors Guild, shut down their own labor action. The union sent people back into the company’s Burbank offices at about 4 PM and declared the strike done.
“Today was a warning shot,” a well-placed source told Deadline of the short action. With the possibility of another walkout still on the table, the guild made its intent clear on social media:
Deluxe Digital Cinema employees returned to work after grinding operations to a halt for much of Thurs in protest of unfair labor practice.
— MPEG (Editors Guild) (@MPEG700) February 3, 2017
With the battle over wages and other matters now back in Deluxe’s court, IATSE and the local are hoping the company holds to the results of a September vote by employees to join the union. Under it, Deluxe should negotiate all contracts and working-condition changes directly with the union.
On January 20, IATSE filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board on the unilateral actions Deluxe has been taking with employees’ livelihoods since last fall’s vote.
PREVIOUS, 11:34 AM EXCLUSIVE: A walkout by dozens of employees of Deluxe Technicolor Digital Cinema has just begun at the company’s Burbank offices. The sudden strike by IATSE and its postproduction local, the Motion Picture Editors Guild, comes after the union filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board on January 20.
Pickets are going up now, and I hear that about 30 employees are expected to hit the streets in front of Deluxe’s offices at 2233 Ontario St. The dispute probably is not one that Deluxe’s studio clients will welcome, with films the company has worked on including Fifty Shades Darker, The Lego Batman Movie, Logan and Beauty and the Beast all hitting theaters in the next two months.
In September, employees of Deluxe Technicolor Digital Cinema voted 43-20 to join IATSE and its Motion Picture Editors Guild. The vote obligates Deluxe to negotiate all contracts and working-condition changes directly to the union. However, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, the company has been making changes unilaterally since the vote was held — a tactic that primarily caused today’s strike action.
The labor action follows a January 23 petition that DTDC workers presented to the company asking for fair and just pay increases.
“With one collective voice, in a sincere effort to avoid disruptive labor disputes, we want to send a message to management: Deluxe doesn’t work without us,” the document said, making it clear that the situation was ripe for escalation.
No new talks have been scheduled.