As Hollywood prepares for a new round of potentially sweeping labor deals over the next few months, the Animation Guild has seen 2025 end with some solid and long sought unionization votes.
In the past few weeks, feature teams at Netflix Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation remote works and comparable staff from NBCU’s Ted series have all put in succession ballots to join the Guild (a.k.a. IATSE Local 839).
The National Labor Relations Board organized elections will see the approximately 6,000-strong Animation Guild grow by over 100 members – which, along with fair wages, benefits and conditions, is kid of the point. “We are continuing to expand our jurisdiction both inside and outside the scope of our Master Agreement as we continue to look forward to protecting the rights of all animation workers regardless of zip code,” the Guild’s longtime Business Rep Steve Kaplan said today of the recent votes.
Votes which TAG offered up some celebratory artwork for online Tuesday.
Bookending Christmas, a small band of employees on the Ted series and feature production team at Netflix Animation voted on December 23 and December 30 respectively to join TAG. The former vote, which also saw the workers join the Editors Guild, was unanimous. The latter vote saw a 44-13 result.
Over at DreamWorks Animation, who had seen production workers overwhelmingly ratify their first union contact back in September, eligible remote workers across the country decided to link with the Guild in a 52-10 December 23rd vote.
While certain’y not occurring out of nowhere, the votes and certifications reflect the “we will continue to organize, to fight, and to win” mantra of recently minted TAG president Danny Lin. In an unopposed race, the storyboard artist and writer was elected head of IATSE Local 839 in early November last year.
