Union & Non-Union Talent Management

Union talent management in New York runs inside the most layered labor settings in American production. SAG-AFTRA New York Local 1 governs on-camera and voice principals through the Codified Basic Agreement and the Commercials Contract. DGA East covers directors, ADs, and UPMs, while WGA East covers screen and broadcast writers. Actors' Equity Association covers Broadway and Off-Broadway crossover talent. Their stage work must be scheduled around evening curtain calls. On the crew side, IATSE Local 52 anchors below-the-line production. Local 161 handles script supervisors, Local 798 handles makeup, and Teamsters Local 817 covers transport captains. Our team checks each agreement against the actual call sheets. That way shoot budgets reflect the holiday pay, meal-penalty triggers, turnaround rules, and pension-and-health inputs that New York enforces more firmly than most US markets.

During the shoot, we run a daily compliance loop. It checks the SAG-AFTRA daily contract minimums, the Equity Production Contract crossover rules, and IATSE turnaround windows. It also checks the New York State Department of Labor child actors permitting rules when minors are on set. Time sheets reconcile to Cast & Crew, Entertainment Partners, or Wrapbook payroll. We take required deductions, send pension-and-health inputs on schedule, and stack late hours by each guild's own math.

On the ground, our records hold signed schedules fit for E&O underwriting. They also hold qualifying-spend proof for the New York State Film Tax Credit applied through Empire State Development. And they hold an audit trail ready for completion-bond and TV networks delivery review. Disputes go through New York entertainment counsel before they grow into a formal grievance. The same workflow scales from a single inbound SAG-AFTRA principal in Manhattan to multi-hundred-crew episodic series across Steiner and Silvercup.