August 9, 2021
The joint Unions (IATSE, DGA, SAG-AFTRA and the Teamsters and Basic Crafts), have reached agreement with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP) on an updated Return to Work Agreement (“Agreement”). The summary below highlights some of the more significant changes to our COVID-related safety protocols. A copy of the full Agreement is also available by clicking on the link below. Negotiations for the new Agreement began in June. As the negotiations progressed, COVID-19 infection numbers began growing in many parts of the country. Our new agreement reflects these increases, largely keeping intact the core safety protocols, with a few important updates that we describe below. The new Agreement does allow for the relaxation of certain protocols for fully vaccinated employees in areas in the United States and Canada with low infection rates. While we had hoped to further reduce many of the protocols, the growing infection rates simply did not allow us to do so at this time. As we have from the start, we continued to rely on the science with the goal of allowing production to continue while reducing the risk of Covid-19 transmission on set.