Workers At Austin’s Powerhouse Animation Studios Vote Overwhelmingly In Favor Of Joining The Animation Guild

An overwhelming majority of animation workers at Austin, Texas’s Powerhouse Animation Studios have ratified their first union contract with The Animation Guild (TAG), IATSE Local 839.

A supermajority of 96% of eligible Powerhouse employees cast their ballots in favor of the historic contract, which is TAG’s first successful unionization of an animation studio in a right-to-work state. In the last couple years, TAG has significantly expanded its efforts to organize animation workers outside of its traditional Los Angeles County membership and has successfully organized workers from Titmouse’s New York City studio, as well as workers in Virginia and Puerto Rico.

Priorities for Powerhouse workers included wage equality, job security, and retirement benefits. TAG and the negotiations committee worked to secure a collective bargaining agreement that they said was appropriate to the market conditions and business model in Texas. (Powerhouse’s smaller satellite studio in Los Angeles was already a TAG signatory.)

Powerhouse is best know known for its action series like Castlevania, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Seis Manos, and Blood of Zeus. The company is currently developing the novel Hell Followed with Us as an animated feature, in partnership with Trustbridge Entertainment and The Matrix franchise co-creator and co-director Lilly Wachowski.

“I am incredibly proud to add Powerhouse Animation Studios to our growing list of signatory studios in the United States,” TAG business representative Steve Kaplan said in a statement. “This comes after the incredible work our organizing and negotiations committees put in to reach this day. This is one of the strongest agreements we have been able to negotiate, and the crew’s resolve to their priority issues is the reason. I also want to acknowledge the work Powerhouse and its leadership team put in. We all had to be flexible to get to the finish line, and they showed their commitment to being a productive partner with the Union in the negotiations.”