Editors End ‘Swamp People’ Strike

The editorial crew of Swamp People have ended their strike against the show’s producers, Original Media, according to a post on the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s Facebook page. Original, which is a subsidiary of Endemol, produces the reality show for the History channel.

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The guild post says the crew will return to work with a union contract. The walkout lasted four days.

“This victory would not have happened without the commitment of all of the volunteers, from Local 700 and from our sister unions, who hefted picket signs in support of the crew,” said the post.

IATSE has an ongoing campaign of attempting to organize reality and other unscripted shows. In the past year, the effort has resulted in agreements with Profiles Entertainment (TNT’s The Great Escape) and Electus (NBC’s Fashion Star), among others.

The WGA East also has been active in organizing this area. As with the IATSE campaign, the WGAE effort has been on a show-by-show basis. The WGA (West and East) sought blanket jurisdiction over reality shows as a negotiating point in the 2007-2008 writers' strike, but that level of union coverage proved to be a nonstarter.

Bookmark The Hollywood Reporter’s Labor Page for the most in-depth coverage of entertainment unions and guilds.

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