Residual Wrestling Match

IndieWire has a good summary of the issues on the line for IATSE movie and television crews whose Collective Bargaining Agreement is now being negotiated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers:

... The primary complaint [of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees in contract negotiations] stems from the decline in its pension, which is funded by residuals. In the expanding world of original content made for streaming, traditional residuals ... don’t exist; there is no financial second act for a show like Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” or Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” since they will always be free for subscribers. ...

The AMPTP has been careful to emphasize that they agree the pension needs to be fully funded; it’s proposed a “New Media Residual” plan, details of which haven’t been made public. However, it also questions if residuals are a) the real source of the pension funds’ precipitous drop (as opposed to poor investment returns), b) the right mechanism for funding the pensions, and c) who should pay for the increases....

IW points out that residuals for IA crews (termed "below the line") are derived from different revenue streams than residuals for "above the line" talent, and end up in different places. Above-the-line guilds receive "mail-box" residuals that go directly to their members; IA employees see residuals flow into their union pension and health plans.

But the rough parity of money flows for different unions (WGA, DGA, IATSE, etc.) has been knocked in a three-cornered hat by the rise of big streaming platforms like NetFlix and Amazon Prime, where the cash comes from on-line subscribers; older money-generators like DVDs and BuRay disks have pretty much shriveled away to almost nothing. And cable and broadcast networks (with their old payment structures) are foundering.

Where contract negotiations, scheduled to re-start near the end of this month, end up is an open question. There could be a prolonged strike; there could be an eleventh-hour agreement. (And individual IA locals, the Animation Guild among them, have their own separate issues). The only thing that's certain is, thanks to rapidly evolving technologies, the power players and distribution methods have changed ... and ways need to be found to wages and the funding of pension and health plans.