Disney’s in-house VFX workers take first steps towards unionizing

Back-to-school commercials and Halloween displays may be returning, but hot labor summer isn’t just yet. In a season that saw two historic strikes, a wave of labor action in the service industry, a new contract for UPS workers, and the first VFX unionization vote in show business history, Disney’s visual effects workers are demanding a seat at the bargaining table, too. Per Gizmodo, a supermajority (more than 80%) of Disney’s 18 in-house visual effects workers signed union authorization cards, making their intent to unionize known to the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB will need certify the authorization, and an official vote to unionize could take place within the next few weeks.

“Today, courageous Visual Effects workers at Walt Disney Pictures overcame the fear and silence that have kept our community from having a voice on the job for decades,” IATSE VFX organizer Mark Patch said in a statement. “With an overwhelming supermajority of these crews demanding an end to ‘the way VFX has always been,’ this is a clear sign that our campaign is not about one studio or corporation. It’s about VFX workers across the industry using the tools at our disposal to uplift ourselves and forge a better path forward.”

Over the past year, several reports into the overworked and underpaid teams that produce Disney’s billion-dollar franchise entries have revealed a rotten core at the center of the studio. (However, the dual strikes also indicate a rotten outer layer, too.) Additionally, criticism of the success of these effects has also been a common complaint of Marvel and Disney’s recent output. Numerous VFX workers revealed to the press that the poorly received digital effects in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania were the result of Disney’s poor planning, shifting deadlines, and unsustainable workloads. Basically, the workers argue if these effects houses don’t agree to the studios’ terms, they fear being blackballed by the most important customer in Hollywood.

Disney’s in-house employees wish to bargain with management over retirement benefits, reliable healthcare, and better pay for the long hours and tight deadlines required to make movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty And The Beast. They’d also like the same benefits as their Disney colleagues, already represented by IATSE.

While this union vote will not cover third-party companies that produce a majority of the VFX on Marvel and Disney projects, it’s believed that unionizing in-house could inspire other production houses to do the same. If the wave of labor-related actions is an indication, the VFX business could be in for a full-scale reckoning.