Production assistants on the NBC drama Chicago Fire have unanimously voted to unionize.
This was the first show shot in Chicago to win a National Labor Relations Board election for production assistants, and the first NBC show to reach this election result. Out of 23 eligible voters, 18 cast ballots voting in favor, with an additional 10 votes that were challenged.
The NLRB will need to certify the results, then the next step will be negotiating a collective bargaining agreement between NBC and the union.
This is the latest organizing move from Production Assistants United, which has organized several productions since the summer, including The Pitt and Abbott Elementary, which also unanimously voted to unionize earlier this month. On Dec. 4, the union, which is backed by the Hollywood laborers’ union LiUNA Local 724, won NLRB elections for the shows All American and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.
“Today’s vote represents the first step in a larger fight for us,” Tim Hendrickson, a production assistant on Chicago Fire, said in a statement.
“We care about our show, our jobs and each other. Our goal is to make sure we are taken care of as much as everyone else because we work just as hard as they do. This victory is one step forward, a victory, to see the change we want in the industry for all PAs in all productions,” said Katya Saldaña, a production assistant on Chicago Fire.
The grassroots Production Assistants United began taking shape in 2023, and saw its first major victory when The Pitt voted to unionize in September, becoming the first major TV production where production assistants and assistants had done so. The Pitt now has a labor contract.
“With every new victory in this movement we’re turning what was once an impossibility into an inevitability,” said Ethan Ravens, co-founder of Production Assistants United.
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