After two years of relentless effort, the production management workers at Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) have officially secured their first union contract, The Animation Guild announced today. This hard-fought victory comes after an intense organizing push that saw a supermajority of production workers vote to unionize in February 2023—despite pushback from studio leadership.

The fight led to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing and a pivotal ruling on September 27, 2023, confirming that full-time production coordinators, production supervisors, and production managers were eligible to unionize under the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839 (TAG).

“It’s been an uphill battle, but we’ve finally made it. We stood our ground, and now we’re standing in our victory—stronger, bolder, and united,” says production coordinator Tamara Lee.

Negotiations for the first contract kicked off on April 11, 2024, and after months at the bargaining table, a tentative agreement was reached on February 13, 2025. The deal was overwhelmingly ratified by the unit (96% voter participation, with 93% voting in favor) and now stands as a sideletter to the existing WDAS collective bargaining agreement. Under this contract, production workers will finally receive many of the same protections as their artistic colleagues, including pension and health benefits. They also secured major wage increases across the board: production managers will see a 24% boost, production supervisors get a 29% raise, and production coordinators—the lowest-paid workers in the unit—will receive a much-needed 35% increase.

“At a time when the industry is in a downturn, these workers at one of the most powerful studios in the world stood up and demanded more,” says TAG Organizer Allison Smartt. “Their daily fight for fair treatment and pay happens behind the scenes, outside the public eye, but they’ve been showing up—signing petitions, staging silent protests in front of executives, marching to deliver their demands—relentlessly pushing for their fair share. Now, they’ve won a contract that will have lasting effects throughout the animation industry, and I have no doubt they’re just getting started.”

WDAS production workers made history as the first feature film production management unit to unionize with TAG. And they won’t be the last. Negotiations are already underway with DreamWorks Animation for their first contract, making them the second feature film production management group to organize with TAG—this time alongside their television counterparts. If all goes well, the WDAS contract will serve as a strong precedent for those negotiations.

The animation and visual effects industries have long placed the wellfare of the very people who make it operate as an extremely low priority. Crunch time lasting months is not uncommon, nor are situations where animators and other art and technical people sleep in the office under their desks is still a common theme in the industry. Animation and visual effects are the among the last workers to unionize, thanks in large part to strong pushback from the studios and the production companies that hire them to do the work. A prevailing attitude within the industry among VFX supervisors is that if they have not driven at least one of the animation houses working for their production out of business, they’re not doing their job. With this new union contract, there is now something standing between animation production managers and the meatgrinder.

“In Hollywood, we love an underdog story, and our ratification was just that—the undervalued and underpaid standing up and demanding fair treatment,” says Production Supervisor Nicholas Ellingsworth. “In the end, we were heard. We were seen. And we’ve set the stage for even greater improvements in production management going forward. We know our colleagues at DreamWorks are in the thick of it now, and we’re rooting for them. Production managers know how to strategize, adapt, and push through obstacles. There’s no doubt they’ll come out on top.”