Dreamworks Pictures Studios in Glenadle, California. Michael Buckner/PMC Remote workers at DreamWorks Animation have ratified their first union contract with The Animation Guild.
In a vote that concluded on Aug. 21, 97 percent of 108 eligible voters supported ratifying a deal that provides workers outside Southern California with parity on wages and working conditions compared to their L.A. counterparts. Turnout for the ratification vote was 83.3 percent.
The deal offers remote workers the same minimum wage rates, workplace protections and health and retirement benefits as staffers who are covered by The Animation Guild’s Master Agreement in L.A. When the Master Agreement is renegotiated, any changes to the deal will also be applied to the remote workers.
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“This contract is a huge victory for DreamWorks remote artists, but also for the animation industry as a whole,” DreamWorks story artist Anthony Holden, who is a member of the union’s negotiating committee, said in a statement. “Our coworkers who work in-person at studios in L.A. enjoy mobility between employers with guaranteed benefits such as healthcare coverage and a pension plan. Many of us remote DreamWorkers have served for years (and in some cases decades) in the same industry without the same protections. Now we can work under the same terms as our union brothers and sisters.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to DreamWorks Animation for comment.
The bargaining unit of remote workers includes story artists, animators, character effects artists, technical directors, lighters, visual development artists, modelers and production coordinators.
The group went public with their unionization effort in the fall of 2025, attempting to join The Animation Guild in order to “regain the same health care, retirement plans, and protections my coworkers enjoy,” as one technical director specialist put it at the time. A story artist said that while he loved his work, “it is unfair to be treated as a second-class employee.”
In a National Labor Relations Board union election that took place that December, union supporters won the contest 52-10. Negotiations for a first contract then took place over several months.
Holden said in his statement, “This contract represents an important shift towards broader industry change that values and respects not only artists’ skills but also our right to choose to live in locations around the country that are best for our families and personal circumstances.”
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