The Animation Guild (TAG) staged its first “March on the Boss” yesterday—an escalation of its negotiation efforts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). 

Around 800 workers marched on Netflix’s Burbank office to deliver a petition highlighting the value of animation to companies like Netflix, signed by nearly 2,000 TAG members. 

The petition praises animation workers for keeping content coming during lockdowns—when many live-action productions had to pause—and makes the link between animation and lucrative merchandise sales. Despite those benefits, animation workers are facing “unprecedented levels of unemployment,” TAG says. 

Representing roughly 5,000 artists, technicians, writers and production crews, TAG has been negotiating with the AMPTP since August. The parties are still at an impasse on issues like wages, job security, and what TAG calls “common-sense guardrails” around the use of generative AI. 

The March on the Boss is part of TAG’s efforts to show employers that animation workers will stand together until they get the contract they deserve, the union said in a release. 

Elianne Melendez—a production coordinator and member of the negotiations committee who presented the petition to Netflix—didn’t mince words about what this March signifies. “Delivering this petition is flexing our power as a union,” she said. “Workers, who have given a lot to this industry, are partners with the studios, but have not been treated as such. This is showing the AMPTP that we won’t be the so-called ‘nice union’ any longer.”

Picture courtesy of TAG.