Hollywood’s behind-the-scenes workers could cripple the entertainment industry with strike
In the skies over Hollywood a small plane pulls a banner reading “vote yes”.
On a monitor on a movie set, the same words are scrawled on a piece of luminous tape.
On a crane hoisting bits of scenery into place, the same slogan is emblazoned in big letters.
The workers are angry about their pay and conditions
That simple message is at the heart of a dispute which could shut down movie and television production across the United States within days.
The 60,000 members of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) are voting this weekend on whether to authorise the first strike in the union’s history.
If it goes ahead it would be the biggest private sector strike in the US for decades and would cripple much of the country’s entertainment industry.
The union represents the behind-the-scenes workers, camera operators, stage hands, set designers, dozens of jobs in the armies it takes to create our favourite shows and movies.
They are unhappy at what they see as longer shifts, poor working conditions and low pay. An industry that has just emerged from the shutdown of the pandemic is ready for more wholesale disruption in the cause of fairness.
IATSE members have received support from across the entertainment industry and members have flooded the Instagram account @ia_stories with their unhappy tales of life in the business.
Cinematographer Peyton Skelton crashed his car after an 80-hour week
Cinematographer Peyton Skelton recounted how he had crashed his car driving home from work early on a Saturday morning after an 80-hour week. “The toll on the body and toll on the mentality of each worker is great,” he told Sky News.
Members often talk about Friday work rolling into Saturday mornings, the so-called “fraturday” shift.
Union members are also unhappy that many discounted pay rates agreed with streaming services when they were new players on the production scene are still in force despite the explosive growth of those firms.
“Flash forward 12 years later and streaming is obviously the thing, it’s the main game in town and it’s the future but it’s also the present,” said Gene Maddaus of Variety magazine.
“Big budget stuff is happening under these lower wage contracts and major streaming companies are using these lower wages and the unions are saying this is basically a loophole at this point.”
It is 14 years since writers in Hollywood went on strike for 14 weeks, a shutdown that was estimated to have cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
This strike would be far more wide-ranging, with members from almost every area and stage of production. A handful of TV firms on different contracts would not be affected.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios, said it has put forward an offer to meet the union’s demands. Negotiations are likely to continue even if IATSE members vote “yes”.
“We love our jobs and know we are lucky to have them,” said Peyton Skelton, “but these things need to be addressed.”
Bodycam footage showing prison officers fatally beating an inmate has been released by New York’s attorney general.
Prison officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in New York punched and kicked 43-year-old Robert Brooks repeatedly while he was handcuffed on an infirmary bed.
He died in hospital on 10 December, a day after the attack.
The incident has drawn outrage from political leaders and was condemned by the prison officers’ union as “incomprehensible”, according to Sky News’ partner newsroom NBC.
It is now being investigated by state attorney general Letitia James, who called the videos “shocking and disturbing” at a virtual news conference.
Prison officers attacked Robert Brooks while he was handcuffed. Pic: New York Attorney General Office
In the video, Mr Brooks is in handcuffs as he is carried into the infirmary by several prison guards.
They put him on the bed and begin repeatedly punching and kicking him.
He is pulled upright, where his bloodied face is visible on camera, and then yanked from the bed by his shirt collar and pushed up against a window.
One of the fourteen workers involved in the incident has resigned and the rest have been suspended without pay until the process to fire them is complete. The workers include correctional officers, sergeants and a prison nurse.
The officers had not activated their body cameras but they were still on and recorded in standby mode, without audio, during the attack.
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As a result of the incident, all officers will now need to have their cameras activated any time they are engaging directly with prisoners.
Mr Brooks’ family thanked officials for taking action “to hold officers accountable” in a statement this week.
“We cannot understand how this could have happened in the first place,” the family said. “No one should have to lose a family member this way.”
Robert Brooks, who died a day after being attacked by prison officers. Pic: Family handout
The attack happened before 9.30pm on 9 December in a medical exam room after Mr Brooks had been transferred from the Mohawk Correctional Facility to Marcy Correctional Facility.
An autopsy found “preliminary findings show concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to a state corrections office investigative report obtained by an affiliate of Sky News’ partner newsroom WKTV in Utica.
Mr Brooks had been behind bars since 2017 on a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault involving a longtime girlfriend.
Officials declined to say why he had been transferred to the Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison.
Last year, an independent prison oversight group called The Correctional Association of New York released a report on the Marcy Correctional Facility.
It noted complaints of “rampant” physical abuse by staff members, with 80% of incarcerated people reporting having witnessed or experienced abuse and nearly 70% reporting racial discrimination or bias.
In response to the video, the union that represents workers at the prison said: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.”
It adding what transpired is the “opposite of everything [the union] and its membership stand for.”
The world’s best golfer has suffered a freak injury while cooking Christmas dinner, forcing him to undergo surgery.
Scottie Scheffler sustained a puncture wound after cutting the palm of his right hand on broken glass.
The world number one required surgery as small glass fragments remained in the palm after the accident.
The injury has forced him out of the first tournament of the season, next week’s The Sentry in Hawaii.
Pic: Reuters
But the 28-year-old has been told he will recover in three to four weeks, and he hopes to be back in action at The American Express tournament in California on 16 January.
Scheffler won an Olympic gold and seven PGA Tour titles in the last year and was recently named PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for a third season in a row.
In May, he was arrested by police during the US PGA Championship after he was accused of trying to drive around a traffic jam caused by a fatal accident.
Scheffler’s arrest became a major story at the US PGA Championship. Pic: Matt Stone-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
Just hours later, he was released and allowed to return to Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky to play his second round of the tournament.
Criminal charges against Scheffler were later dismissed due to a lack of evidence and a police officer who arrested him was disciplined for not having his bodycam on at the time of the incident.
The man accused of burning a woman to death on a New York subway train has been indicted on murder and arson charges.
Sebastian Zapeta is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and then fanning the flames with a shirt, which caused her to be engulfed by the blaze.
He allegedly sat on a platform at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, opposite the stopped train, and watched as she burned to death.
Authorities are still working to identify the victim.
Zapeta, 33, has been charged with one count of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson in the first degree.
After a brief hearing in which the indictment was announced, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system.”
Mr Gonzalez said police and medical examiners are using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques to identify the victim, while also retracing her steps before the murder.
“Our hearts go out not only to this victim, but we know that there’s a family,” he said. “Just because someone appears to have been living in the situation of homelessness does not mean that there’s not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life.”
Officers patrol the platform where the woman died. Pic: AP
Zapeta was initially charged with murder and arson in a criminal complaint earlier this week.
Such filings are often a first step in the criminal process because all felony cases in New York require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless a defendant waives that requirement.
Zapeta was not present at the hearing. The most serious charge he is facing carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole and the indictment will be unsealed on 7 January.
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Zapeta is a Guatemalan who entered the US illegally having already been deported in 2018, officials say.
He was taken into custody last Sunday, after three children called 911 when they recognised him from an image shared by police.
During questioning, prosecutors say he claimed not to know what happened, and noted he consumes alcohol – but did identify himself in photos and videos showing the fire being lit.
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