WORCESTER, Mass. - It’s been nearly three months since the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike ended, but the lengthy pause on production continues to impact behind-the-scenes workers who help bring TV and movies to life.
What You Need To Know
- Work has started to pick up for behind-the-scenes workers who help build TV and film sets, but not at the rate they had hoped
- Only a small percentage of IATSE union members are working, despite the actors' strike ending nearly three months ago
- At Westerman Prop Shop in Worcester, workers offered a closer look at their unique careers
- They hope for more new TV shows and movies to be announced soon
Some of those crews can be found at Westerman Prop Shop in Worcester, where several floors of items ranging from vintage furniture to jukeboxes and traffic lights provide all the on-set pieces needed for production.
“When I look around this place, it’s a lot of nostalgia because it’s set pieces from movies I’ve worked on, and they become set pieces for another movie or used in a different way,” said Jessica Therrien. “I’ve always liked interior design, so it’s sort of naturally the department I fell into. Then I had an opportunity to join the union, which covers all the work for the art department.”
Therrien is with IATSE, a union representing stage hands, technicians and other entertainment workers. Her projects have included movies like "The Purge" and "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women," as well as series like "The Sleepover" on Netflix.
On Wednesday, her crew was unloading a truck full of set pieces from the HBO Max series "Julia," which was canceled after two seasons.
Meghan Gylfoyle is a local set decorating buyer, and estimates only small fraction of IATSE union members are currently working.
“Since the strikes ended, I would say there's about 20 to 25% of our union back to work, which means only a select few people are hired, and are slowly able to hire some of us,” Gylfoyle said. “But that deals with the studios deciding on what can happen and what cannot.”
The crew would normally be looking at seven months of steady work, but because their show was canceled, there’s much more uncertainty.
During the strike, and now in these months following it, many crew members have had to fall back on other sources of income, and going forward, the voices of these behind the scenes employees may become much louder.
“I know there's also possibilities of our union here striking,” Gylfoyle said. “So that's also a potential reason why not a lot of work is happening at the moment. We're hoping by springtime we’ll be up to maybe 50%, which is still not a lot.”
Other union members said they had begun to look for jobs in other fields, but when the strike ended, they decided to stick around. Now, with some shows getting canceled and new productions taking longer than expected, there’s been a holding pattern as they wait for more work.
“We're usually used to at least five to eight projects happening, and there's only two officially happening,” Gylfoyle said. “So a lot of people are struggling.”