14-04-2025
Production Assistants' Union Drive Gets Boost From Bernie Sanders Rally: 'Studios Will Push Back'
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour stop in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday featured politicians, famous musicians, labor leaders — and Hollywood production assistants.
Echoing the event's ethos of challenging corporate interests and billionaires, labor organizers focused on one of the entertainment industry's most crucial but unglamorous roles made a fiery unionization pitch to the reported 36,000 attendees. In the process, they put a spotlight on wages and working conditions as they described production assistants as being primed to build 'working-class power.'
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Green Day Blaze Through Headline Set, Charli XCX Brings Star Power at Coachella Day 2
Bernie Sanders Blasts Trump and Musk During Surprise Coachella Appearance
SAG-AFTRA and Advertisers Reach Tentative Agreement on Successor Contracts
Thousands of production assistants are 'sick and tired of being underpaid, overworked and unprotected,' said LiUNA Local 724 business manager Alex Aguilar, whose Local is heading up the union-organization effort, in a speech. 'That stops!'
Organizer Clio Byrne-Gudding, a production assistant who has in the past worked on Rebel Moon parts one and two, addressed production assistants directly: 'Will you continue to allow the corporate class to walk all over you and your coworkers? Or will you stand up and put your talents to use to protect your life and the lives of your fellow PAs?'
The appearance was the highest-profile yet for LiUNA organizers aiming to create a nationwide production assistants' union. The group went public at a Labor Day parade in 2024 and now have organizers in New York, Texas, Illinois and Georgia, Byrne-Gudding said on Saturday.
The group's key objectives are to raise wages, address turnaround times and institute union-administered health insurance coverage.
But, as organizers mentioned at the rally, they're also looking to revolutionize a typical career pathway for entry-level workers in Hollywood. 'We're organizing not just to fix one job but to transform the entire industry for future generations of workers,' said Ethan Ravens, another organizer with the group.
Ravens spoke to waking up at 2 or 3 a.m. for the job, working 16-plus hour days and then getting 'five or less hours of sleep' before repeating the cycle the next day. He said he knew PAs who had fallen asleep at the wheel while working productions' sometimes-punishing hours.
'Some of Hollywood's biggest players are the largest, most profitable companies in the world,' Ravens said in his speech. 'We're talking about Apple, Disney, Amazon. And as a PA, we're expected to carry the weight of these Hollywood productions on our backs.'
Organizer Nalani Rodgers speculated on how Hollywood companies might respond to the half-a-year-old union drive in a speech. 'Studios will push back, they'll tell you you're just lucky to be here, that things will never change and it is what it is,' she said. 'You and your fellow workers must resist giving into fear.'
The appearance preceded a rally that will take place for the organizing effort on May 4 in Burbank. The organizers are ramping up their efforts at a challenging time for crew members, especially in Los Angeles, where on-location production days fell 22 percent in the first quarter of 2025 compared with a year prior. State-wide, film, TV and sound jobs were down 25 percent in California in 2024 compared with 2022, before the double strikes of 2023.
Byrne-Gudding acknowledged that they have seen PAs endure 'joblessness and poverty' during their time in the industry. 'Things have been hell in Hollywood and in the world,' Byrne-Gudding said.
Still, Byrne-Gudding urged their cohort to keep their eye on the ball. 'Many in the film business would tell you that winning protections for PAs in impossible. But you know what? Here in the film business, we do the impossible on a daily basis.'
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started
Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023
Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire
