More than 50 visual effects employees at Marvel Studios want to unite. The group filed its wish on Monday, asking the National Labor Relations Board to schedule a formal election as early as Aug. 21. according to Vulture.
“For nearly half a century, visual effects industry workers have been denied the same protections and benefits their peers and crew members have relied on since the dawn of the Hollywood film industry,” VFX organizer for IATSE Mark Patch said in a statement. “This is a historic first step for VFX workers coming together with a collective voice demanding respect for what we do.”
The VFX staff looking to unite are part of Marvel’s “on-set VFX specialists,” Vulture said, which includes “data managers, production managers, witness camera operators and assistants working on MCU series like Loki And Daredevil: Born Again.” Post-production VFX is usually outsourced to various VFX production houses, where Vulture reported that Marvel is known as a “bully” in the industry who can “ruin careers”. IATSE wants to start internally with Marvel’s VFX team and hopefully spread the union solidarity out there from there.
While other parts of the industry are unionized, such as writers and actors, the visual effects workers largely lack union representation, despite their demanding work and long hours. The vast majority of Marvel VFX employees signed union authorization cards intended to trigger an NLRB election and join the thousands of industry professionals already unionized in Hollywood.
The IATSE itself represents people who work behind the scenes in TV, theatre, movies and elsewhere. The protections granted behind the scenes to IATSE employees do not otherwise apply to VFX employees: “Turnaround times do not apply to us, protected hours do not apply to us, and pay equality does not apply to us”, VFX coordinator Bella told Huffman to Vulture. “Visual effects must become a sustainable and safe department for everyone who has suffered far too long and for all newcomers who need to know that they are not being exploited.”
Visual effects are a particularly difficult field, and Marvel is reportedly particularly hard on its VFX workers, according to a January Vulture report“VFX employees particularly lament Marvel’s voracious appetite for visual effects that clashes with its apparent reluctance to invest in the human capital required to implement them,” the report reads. That means more work for less pay — reportedly 20% less than other studios, Vulture reported at the time.
Writers and actors from both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are on strike as unions battle the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for new, better contracts. It is an unprecedented summer of labor actions; the two unions have not gone on strike together since 1960. Like Marvel’s VFX employees, WGA and SAG-AFTRA members seek a say in how they are compensated – in a multibillion-dollar industry, workers are undervalued and seek fair compensation for their work.
Polygon has reached out to Marvel and IATSE for comment.