The scope of the Collective Bargaining Agreement is written so that only people who are hired in Los Angeles County are covered by the contract terms, creating what some people call a “geofence.” As a general practice, the CBA was also applied to people living in adjacent counties as long as they physically worked in LA County. However, the pandemic impacted the way we work as an industry and made remote work an option for many animation workers.  When faced with an opportunity to move out of state and work remotely, animation workers were told that it was outside the scope of the agreement, and they would no longer be considered Union employees.
Addressing this issue in the 2022 contract negotiations was not a mandatory subject of bargaining, and as such the employers originally said they did not want to discuss the matter during negotiations. However, the Negotiations Committee stood firm in order to create a pathway to Union-covered remote work outside of LA County. Under the new unpublished sideletter, we confirmed that anyone who is hired in Los Angeles can work outside of the county and state if the employer agrees to allow remote work.