The 1982 animators' strike was a labor strike conducted by American animators in the Greater Los Angeles area. The strike, organized by the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Local 839, was caused by disagreements between the labor union and studios over runaway productions, a term referring to outsourcing production work to outside of the metropolitan area. The strike ran from August to October and ended in failure for the union, who failed to win concessions from the studios.
Background
Labor organization in the American animation industry
Unionization in the American animation industry began in the 1930s. At the time, workers in the industry saw unionizing as a way to combat poor working conditions, which included workweeks of over 40 hours without overtime pay, high production quotas, and a lack of credit for their work. Through the 1930s and 1940s, labor unions attempted to organize workers at many different animation studios, resulting in numerous labor disputes. The industry's first major labor strike occurred in 1937 when workers at Fleischer Studios in New York City went on strike. Other notable strikes during this time include the 1941 Disney animators' strike at Walt Disney Productions and a 1947 strike at Terrytoons that was the longest in the industry's history, lasting 28 weeks. By January 1942, this strong push amongst labor organizers had resulted in 90 percent of animators in the United States belonging to a union. While much of this push had come from the Screen Cartoonist's Guild, a union that was founded in 1938, by the 1950s, the Guild was gradually replaced in popularity by another union, the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists (MPSC) Local 839, and by 1970, the Guild had ceased to exist.
Runaway productions
The Supreme Court's ruling in the 1948 case United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. severely hurt the animation industry, especially regarding the creation of animated short films, and in the decade that followed, animation studios began to explore new options to reduce costs. This included outsourcing animation work from countries other than the United States, a process known in the industry as a runaway production. The first major animation project to be created as a runaway production was the 1950s series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. According to the show's creator, work they considered "above the line" (more creative processes such as directing, storyboarding, and animating) were done in the United States, while work considered "below the line" (more labor-intensive tasks such as inking and painting) were done at an animation studio in Mexico City. However, for much of the decade, the prohibitive costs associated with shipping, logistics, and customs offset the potential savings that animation studios stood to gain by outsourcing. Additionally, animators and producers in the United States viewed animation produced in other countries as often being of lesser quality, with the creators of Rocky and Bullwinkle eventually deciding against future runaway productions due in part to the quality of the animation they had received from the Mexican studio. However, starting in the 1960s, it became much more common for studios to outsource parts of the animation process to other countries, primarily in Asia and Europe. One reason for this trend was the growth in popularity of animated series made for television. Hanna-Barbera, an American animation studio that produced many projects for television, had seen a rapid growth during this time and by the 1960s, the studio announced plans to outsource. Beginning in the early 1970s, the company began to outsource more and more of its projects to countries such as South Korea and Taiwan. Many of the countries where outsourcing occurred had much weaker labor laws and union presence was either not as strong as it was in the United States or was nonexistent, leading to significantly lower wages for the animation workers in these countries compared to the United States. By 1978, three-quarters of the production work carried out by Hanna-Barbera was occurring outside of their own studio.