Carol Lombardini, the doyenne of labor negotiations on behalf of Hollywood’s prime firms, is about to step down because the president of the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers after 15 years on the helm.
The president and chief negotiator of the AMPTP is getting ready to transition into an advisory function because the group conducts a seek for her successor, The Hollywood Reporter has discovered. “We’re extremely grateful to Carol for her a few years of management on the AMPTP and need her the easiest in her retirement,” an AMPTP spokesperson acknowledged. “We’re glad Carol isn’t going far as she is going to proceed to function President whereas we proceed to conduct a full seek for her successor, and that she is going to then transfer to an advisory function as we proceed our transition to the following era leaders on the AMPTP.”
An AMPTP spokesperson says that Lombardini had lengthy deliberate to retire in 2025.
Lombardini is on the brink of step down one 12 months after a historic double strike wracked the {industry} and spurred rampant union-side criticism of the AMPTP and as her group stays locked in negotiations with The Animation Guild. Lately she led labor talks with Communications Staff of America-represented parking coordinators and manufacturing assistants, the Administrators Guild of Canada’s British Columbia department, the New York-based crew union IATSE Native 52 and Teamsters-represented casting administrators and placement division professionals.
She has not taken a lead function within the negotiations with TAG, which started Aug. 12 and hinge on the doubtless disruptive function that AI will play within the subject transferring ahead, THR has discovered. Lombardini’s prime deputy, senior vp enterprise affairs Tracy Cahill, has guided talks on behalf of studios and streamers in her stead, as she has beforehand, whereas Lombardini has been briefed.
Lombardini has been with the AMPTP since its inception in 1982, after Paramount, Common Studios, Walt Disney Studios and MGM joined forces with the member firms of the Affiliation of Movement Image and Tv Producers to discount collectively with labor teams. “Our important function,” stated the group’s then-president Nick Counter, “is to deliver employers again collectively to talk with one voice when coping with the guilds and unions within the {industry}.” (For years, Lombardini was Counter’s No. 2.)
Lombardini turned that one voice when she was promoted to president of the alliance in October 2009, starting a run that for years was freed from main unrest. In 2021, the AMPTP narrowly prevented a strike with crew union IATSE, although greater than 98 % of voting members approved a piece stoppage; this 12 months, regardless of fears that crews may mount the third industry-halting strike in two years, Lombardini stored the labor peace with IATSE and the Hollywood Primary Crafts teams.
That streak, in fact, got here to a sudden, wrenching halt through the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. Because the work stoppages shut down the {industry}, Lombardini was portrayed as a villain by sure union members, incomes her a parody account on the social media platform X. (That account, which continues to be energetic, is run by an nameless self-described “common working-class mid-level author.”) Some studio chiefs had been believed to be annoyed when 4 of them — Bob Iger, Donna Langley, David Zaslav and Ted Sarandos — stepped in through the writers’ and actors’ strikes to barter settlements. As of late it’s extremely uncommon for leisure CEOs to be included in {industry} bargaining periods.
Regardless of being one of the highly effective ladies within the enterprise and having the ear of its CEOs, Lombardini has lengthy shied away from the highlight, together with throughout 2023’s strikes. She prefers to debate labor disputes inside the confines of a convention room (ideally on the AMPTP’s discreet headquarters within the Sherman Oaks Galleria outside shopping center) slightly than in headlines. However to those that know her — each allies and opponents — she is taken into account a shrewd and detail-oriented negotiator who has a near-comprehensive information of the minutia of {industry} labor contracts.
Stated the AMPTP in its assertion, “She has been a gentle and invaluable advocate on the bargaining desk, strengthening relationships with our union companions each step of the way in which.”
Amongst colleagues, she’s referred to as somebody who can do the typically thankless work of bringing collectively opponents — disparate studios and streamers — amongst whom little love is misplaced. Stated one management-side insider of Lombardini’s job in 2023, “You’ve received an entire bunch of firms which have totally different pursuits which might be making an attempt to place a unified case ahead. However that’s the miracle of Carol Lombardini, that she’s ready to do this, as a result of they don’t all have the identical pursuits.” Stated ABC’s longtime labor chief Jeff Ruthizer, “Carol has this horrible job, whipping everybody into form and discovering widespread floor.” He added, “It’s very hectic.”