October 30, 2019
National Board Votes Unanimously to Send Agreement to Members for Ratification
Los Angeles – On Saturday, October 19, the DGA National Board of Directors voted unanimously to send a tentative new three-year Network Agreement to members for ratification. The agreement with ABC, CBS and NBC covers staff and freelance members employed in news, sports and operations at the companies’ television networks and many of their owned local television stations. The Network Agreements are separate from the Guild’s Basic Agreement and are also negotiated every three years.
The tentative agreement includes:
- Increased wages and fees by 2.5% in each of the three years of the Agreement for a compounded wage increase of 7.7% over the term.
- The right to divert up to 2% of the negotiated wage increase to the DGA Pension or Health Plan during the term of the Agreement.
- Provisions securing work opportunities for members who work in sports – and a number of other important gains.
The negotiations between the DGA’s Network Negotiations Committee and ABC, CBS and NBC began mid-September in New York and concluded at the end of the month. The Committee was headed by Co-Chairs Brett Holey (Senior Director, NBC News), Lily Olszewski (Director, ABC’s Good Morning America) and Scott Berger (Associate Director, CBS Evening News) together with DGA Eastern Executive Director Neil Dudich.
DGA President Thomas Schlamme said:
“News, sports and local television collectively reach massive audiences, and the contributions of our members who work in these areas are absolutely critical to the success of these operations. This deal is a testament to that value. That’s especially meaningful in the context of the industry’s changing business environment, and makes the results obtained by our Network Negotiations Committee all the more impressive. I congratulate Brett, Lily, Scott, Neil and the entire team on this success.”
Network Negotiations Co-Chairs Brett Holey, Lily Olszewski and Scott Berger said:
“Since news and sports are mature businesses, we focused on wages and pension, the issues most important to us – while making clear that rollbacks were unacceptable. We feel we accomplished our goals. We had an experienced Committee made up of outstanding staff and freelance employees from the networks and local stations. With the support, guidance and hard work of Guild staff we were able to withstand the networks’ challenges and secured an agreement that will work as hard for our members as we all do to bring news and sporting events to audiences across the country. Thanks to our phenomenal team, we were able to fend off proposals for significant concessions while achieving increases in wages and benefits, as well as other meaningful improvements for our members.”
DGA Eastern Executive Director Neil Dudich said:
“These were tough negotiations. But our Co-Chairs, utilizing the skills, forward-thinking and tenacity they bring to their jobs day in and day out, achieved a contract that serves our membership today, and also looks forward into the future. This is a deal that we’re very proud of.”
The Guild’s current contract with the networks expires on June 30, 2020. If ratified, the new contract will cover the period of July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023.