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LOS ANGELES \u2014 A midweek meeting in a conference room at LiUNA Local 724 is just one of the many it\u2019s taken for Michael McWilliam and other production assistants to make history.<\/p>\n
PAs on the show \u201cThe Pitt\u201d recently voted to unionize.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/center> 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\u2019s a job McWilliam said he takes seriously and one he enjoys.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do have our fingers in so many different pies on set and we are interacting with so many different departments on set,\u201d McWilliam said. \u201cIn a more logistical sense, we\u2019re helping the ADs run the set as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, McWilliam said loving the job doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easy to make ends meet in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the same challenges for most people living in a city like Los Angeles, where the cost of living is so high,\u201d he said. \u201cRent payments are sky-high right now, groceries are getting more expensive, gas is getting more expensive, healthcare has just always been unaffordable.\u201d<\/p>\n While he has health care coverage on \u201cThe Pitt,\u201d PAs often move from show to show, and that patchwork approach can leave gaps.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be great if the health care was standard no matter which show we were working on,\u201d McWilliam said. \u201cThat consistency is peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father came to this country… he didn\u2019t have a job that provided health care or pension benefits,\u201d Aguilar said. \u201cWhen he joined the union, it literally changed our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Aguilar says unions are about raising standards for workers who have historically lacked protections.<\/p>\n \u201cUnions 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The assistants behind \u201cThe Pitt\u201d 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.<\/p>\n McWilliam said that for PAs, the fight is about more than wages and benefits, it\u2019s about building sustainable careers in an industry that depends on their work every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumnews1.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES \u2014 A midweek meeting in a conference room at LiUNA Local 724 is just one of the many it\u2019s taken for Michael McWilliam and other production assistants to make history. PAs on the show \u201cThe Pitt\u201d recently voted to unionize.\u00a0 What You Need To Know Production assistants on \u201cThe Pitt\u201d voted unanimously to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2068075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22694,317977,21796,22691,21741,362479,352834,71501],"class_list":["post-2068074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-app-arts-entertainment","tag-app-local-business","tag-business","tag-california","tag-entertainment","tag-rae-williams","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/PAs-push-for-protections-as-The-Pitt-sets-stage-for.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2068074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068076,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068074\/revisions\/2068076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2068075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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