“HPI”, “Daryl Dixon” and “Marie-Antoinette” among 70 TV productions affected by the French crew’s strike
Hollywood returns to the set after the resolution of the actors’ strike. This week, the French audiovisual sector saw three days of protests caused by teams fighting for pay rises.
The three-day strike that started on Wednesday affected about 70 television productions, including the fourth season of the hit TF1 HPI (High Intellectual Capacity), Walking Dead spin-off Daryl Dixonsecond season of Canal+ Marie Antoinette and the France Télévision web series Stop.
According to local media reports, Daryl Dixon Filming was scheduled to last most of a week in the old town of Brittany’s port city of Saint Malo, but production was suspended after just one day. The series was to travel past Mont Saint Michel.
Many non-fiction shows also hit, such as Supreme boss, Capital AND Team.
The strike was called by the three main trade unions representing audiovisual technicians, Spiac-CGT, SNTPCT and CFTC Media+, which are calling for a 20% pay rise for all workers in the audiovisual industry.
In a statement posted on its website on November 14, Spiac-CGT said the sense of anger and dismay among its members was similar to that felt by US writers and actors during the Hollywood strikes, even if their industrial action was not met with receiving media attention in the same way.
“Since 2007, due to the lack of an increase in the minimum wage, workers in this sector have lost 20% of their purchasing power. They have seen their working conditions deteriorate and working hours explode with the advent of digital platforms, while at the same time struggling with the same job insecurity,” Spiac-CGT said.
“What until recently was an ‘exciting job’ is now turning into an increasingly restrictive and exhausting professional activity in the face of galloping inflation, with wages constantly falling in the context of galloping inflation,” he continued.
The strike was originally scheduled to last two days, November 15 and November 6, but union members voted to extend the action until November 17 after dissatisfaction with the first meeting held on Thursday with the USPA, SPI, SPECT and SATEV producer and distributor organizations to start working out a collective agreement. .
After the meeting, the authorities announced in a joint statement that they were postponing the next meeting to December 5.
They said that in the case of USPA and SPI, they will present a minimum wage proposal at the meeting on December 6, which will take into account the economic and professional specificity of the fiction.
The producer organization’s statement also called on broadcasters and streamers to take up the challenges related to the current situation and contribute to increasing crew wages.
“It is impossible to achieve an economic response to workers’ demands without the joint efforts of all parties involved in financing the work,” we read.
The unions did not like the decision to postpone the next meeting to December 5 and the suggestion that the increase proposal could set different rates depending on the type of production.
“You must listen to us urgently,” Spiac-CGT said in a statement announcing the third day of strikes on Friday.
The body added that unions would not accept different pay “increases” for different types of programs and that it was calling on crews to take further action in the coming days and weeks.
