Unmasking the AMPTP: Hollywood Labor’s Opaque Nemesis

A Hollywood Reporter article pulls back the curtain on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The Hollywood Reporter provides an insider look at the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).

NOTE: As a growing number of writers and actors have stated in public, it should be the AMPTC: companies, not producers.

Here are some key excerpts from the THR article.

Typically a humdrum (and ignored) epicenter of contract lawyering situated in a suburban shopping mall, the AMPTP has lately taken on a SPECTRE-like aura among union members, its president, Carol Lombardini, emerging as the starring Bond villain of Hollywood’s dual strike saga. (SAG-AFTRA walked in July, when its own demands weren’t met.) That little is known or understood of the AMPTP and its byzantine operations, not just by those outside the business but even by those long employed within it, adds to the frustration and intrigue that swirl around the alliance.

Eight companies constitute the organization’s “Class A” members that, along with top AMPTP staffers, call the shots during negotiations: Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Sony, Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Warner Bros. Discovery. “It’s one of the most, if not the most, powerful multi-employer associations in the world,” says a union negotiating committee member.

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The AMPTP enjoys perennial home-court advantage during contract talks with unions by offering substantial, dedicated space for marathon negotiating sessions. Dozens of representatives — lawyers, executives, note-takers and others — can be present for each side in the primary room where bargaining occurs, even as the number varies according to the contract under negotiation; the recent SAG-AFTRA negotiations saw upward of 50 people representing the union, with less in attendance on behalf of the AMPTP and others signing in on Zoom.

The sides face each other across a table with their leaders at the center. Major companies’ representatives are in front alongside Lombardini and her №2, AMPTP senior vp business affairs Tracy Cahill, with secondary and tertiary participants seated behind. The unions’ lead negotiators and their top lieutenants, meanwhile, sit across from their studio counterparts in the center, with a similar tiered arrangement behind them, except that the labor side’s third row consists of single-occupancy, school-style desks rather than a long table, per several sources. (This discrepancy irks some on the labor side of these negotiations; “it feels very infantilizing,” says SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee member Shaan Sharma.) The WGA and SAG-AFTRA instructs their negotiating teams not to show emotion in this room, which could give away or miscommunicate what the unions’ reception may be to various statements or proposals.

The article goes into detail about the actual negotiation process which provides a helpful sense of how these conversations and debates play out.

The Guild has notified members that negotiations are to resume next week. Let’s hope the AMPTP(C) gets serious in addressing the legitimate concerns of the writers.

For the rest of The Hollywood Reporter article, go here.

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For the latest updates on the strike and news resources, go here.

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