For every television show and movie, there is a small army of off-screen workers keeping the production afloat. They are known as “below the line” crew members, people whose names will never grace a poster advertising the latest entertainment. These workers include cinematographers, grips, hairstylists, costumers, makeup artists, craft services, and editors, and many of them are in the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), a 150,000-member-strong union.

Now IATSE is gearing up for a possible strike. The union has been negotiating for months with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents such companies as Amazon, Disney, and Netflix. At stake are the terms of the Producer-IATSE Basic Agreement — a three-year contract that covers IATSE’s thirteen Hollywood locals, some sixty thousand people — as well as the Theatrical and Television Motion Picture Area Standards Agreement.

With the AMPTP’s failure to respond to IATSE’s latest proposal, offered on September 21, the union announced that the Hollywood locals would take a strike authorization vote. The results are in: 90 percent of eligible members voted, and 98 percent of those votes are in favor of authorizing a strike. In doing so, they have given IATSE president Matthew Loeb the authority to call a strike should progress at the bargaining table prove impossible.