IATSE has reached an agreement with the producers of MrBeast’s Prime Video competition series Beast Games to support more than 500 workers that started work on season three without a union contract.

Workers on the Greenville, North Carolina production will receive back pay and benefits for the pre-production work already completed. They’ll be covered by the agreement for the entirety of season three and for subsequent seasons.

Season two had an IATSE agreement for a single season (and season three was subsequently launched with a non-union crew). Season one had Canadian telecom union NABET-CWA on set for some of the production. That first season of the massive show (which has a US$5-million cash prize) was plagued with allegations and a class-action lawsuit accusing the production of unsafe conditions, including sexual harassment and a lack of food or medical staff, claiming that MrBeast’s company failed to provide minimum wages or even rest for competitors.

The series is in many ways a traditional streamer production, with big budgets and crews, and a union contract for such an enterprise isn’t unusual. But what’s unique is that MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) comes from the wild west of YouTube, where an indie start-up attitude dominates the work of trying to create viral videos and build an audience.

That same attitude that helped grow 28-year-old Donaldson into the world’s most successful YouTuber (484 million subscribers) has also led to several lawsuits. The latest of these is from a former MrBeast Industries employee who is alleging that the workplace is filled with sexual harassment and toxicity. The lawsuit indicates a pattern where the lax, see-what-sticks approach that helped draw views and subscribers on YouTube also clashes with running a larger business. The lawsuit alleges that there was no standard employee guidebook, and instead one that had messages like “It’s okay for the boys to be childish” and “[i]f talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them.” Beast Industries denied those allegations, and called the lawsuit “clout-chasing” and “built on deliberate misrepresentations and categorically false statements.”

Another lawsuit working its way through the courts is one from 2023 alleging that Donaldson’s restaurant chain MrBeast Burger failed to honor its contractual obligations. Donaldson also denied these allegations, and these lawsuits are still making their way through the courts.

The IATSE contract, though, represents the growing pains of a prominent YouTuber evolving beyond the lax rules and standards of YouTube-style productions into a more mainstream enterprise. And other YouTubers, who are similarly moving from the indie world of filming with friends and into traditional TV and streaming productions, should be paying attention.

Pictured is Jimmy Donaldson. Image courtesy of Phillip Faraone / Getty Images for Prime Video.