LOS ANGELES — A midweek meeting in a conference room at LiUNA Local 724 is just one of the many it’s taken for Michael McWilliam and other production assistants to make history.
PAs on the show “The Pitt” recently voted to unionize.
Production assistants, often called the backbone of a set, are responsible for everything from wrangling background actors to helping assistant directors keep productions on track. It’s a job McWilliam said he takes seriously and one he enjoys.
“We do have our fingers in so many different pies on set and we are interacting with so many different departments on set,” McWilliam said. “In a more logistical sense, we’re helping the ADs run the set as well.”
Still, McWilliam said loving the job doesn’t mean it’s easy to make ends meet in Los Angeles.
“It’s the same challenges for most people living in a city like Los Angeles, where the cost of living is so high,” he said. “Rent payments are sky-high right now, groceries are getting more expensive, gas is getting more expensive, healthcare has just always been unaffordable.”
While he has health care coverage on “The Pitt,” PAs often move from show to show, and that patchwork approach can leave gaps.
“It would be great if the health care was standard no matter which show we were working on,” McWilliam said. “That consistency is peace of mind.”
The assistants are now backed by the Laborers International Union of North America, which represents a wide range of workers in Hollywood, from theme park employees to billboard crews. For business manager Alex Aguilar, the cause is personal.
“My father came to this country… he didn’t have a job that provided health care or pension benefits,” Aguilar said. “When he joined the union, it literally changed our lives.”
Aguilar says unions are about raising standards for workers who have historically lacked protections.
“Unions are supposed to represent working people, to protect them, provide protections, and set minimum standards for these workers and any bargaining unit that we represent,” he said.
The assistants behind “The Pitt” hope their unanimous vote will serve as a springboard for broader change. They say the goal is first to secure agreements across Warner Bros. productions, then expand to other studios, and ultimately push for industry-wide protections.
McWilliam said that for PAs, the fight is about more than wages and benefits, it’s about building sustainable careers in an industry that depends on their work every day.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumnews1.com ’
