Thousands Sign Petition Calling For Pay Equity For Historically Female Crafts

More than 3,300 industry figures, including Ava DuVernay, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and writer-producer Marta Kauffman and Rosanna Arquette, have signed a petition calling for gender pay equity in Hollywood’s historically female-dominated crafts.

Other signers include WGA West vice president Marjorie David, director Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Rachel Morrison – the first female cinematographer ever nominated for an Oscar – and actors Wanda Sykes, Martin Sheen, Don Cheadle, Mandy Moore, John C Reilly, Aisha Tyler, Joe Mantegna, Tim Matheson, Alfred Molina, Emily Deschanel, Sam Waterston and Wendi McLendon-Covey.

The petition was started by Reel Equity, a collective of film industry professionals and their allies, which says that Hollywood’s “long history of gender segregation and stereotyping – and a current culture of gender bias and sexual harassment in film and television production – affects the work opportunities available to members of these female-dominated crafts and how the industry values their contributions.”

An open letter accompanying the petition states that “there is an egregious wage gap for historically female-majority crafts…that needs to be brought to the attention of those in positions of power in order to remedy this inequity” (read it in full below). These crafts include, but are not limited to, production coordinators, assistant production coordinators, art department coordinators, script supervisors and costumers.

The petition (see it here) is endorsed by Women in Film, IATSE Local 871, the ACLU of Southern California, the National Women’s Law Center, Equal Rights Advocates, Women in Media, and numerous other organizations. 

Here is the open letter in its entirely:

A just-released study (read it here) shows that there is an egregious wage gap for historically female-majority crafts including Production Coordinators, Assistant Production Coordinators, Art Department Coordinators and Script Supervisors, that needs to be brought to the attention of those in positions of power in order to remedy this inequity.

While our positions are central to a production running smoothly and being kept on track, we are not paid on par with our counterparts on the crew. In fact, the scale rates for Art Department Coordinators and Assistant Production Coordinators are barely above minimum wage.

In the current age of #MeToo and the launching of Times Up we have seen that some production companies have moved to correct gender-based wage inequality for actors working on the same projects, but there has not been any similar effort made to address wage gaps for those working behind the scenes.

With your help we can demonstrate that this issue has the support of our fellow industry members and the viewing audience at large. We will be delivering this letter to the heads of major studios, networks and production companies as we push them to address this issue.