The union representing production assistants is protesting members on Chicago Med and Chicago Fire allegedly losing guaranteed work hours after they ratified labor contracts.
LiUNA Local 724, the Burbank-based union that represents dozens of production assistants on the NBC shows, on Wednesday erected banners and a Scabby the Rat inflatable in front of two production locations amid the labor dispute.
According to the union, the productions had previously guaranteed production assistants 12- and 14-hour days, which provided the workers with overtime pay in addition to their $19.93 hourly wages. But after the production assistants unions ratified their first contracts in early July as the shows were on hiatus, those guarantees disappeared. The union says that, as a result, some production assistants on Chicago Fire saw their weekly take-home pay dip 43 percent.
“Production Assistants are among the lowest-paid workers in television production,” LiUNA Local 724 business manager Alex Aguilar said in a statement. “Workers should not lose the income they have historically relied upon simply because they chose to unionize. These guarantees have existed for years because they provide the livable income Production Assistants depend on to support themselves and their families. We are committed to protecting those standards.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to NBCUniversal, whose Universal Television subsidiary produces the shows, for comment. THR has also reached out to Wolf Entertainment, which additionally produces the shows.
The union further claims that, when representatives reached out to NBCUniversal to air their misgivings, the company conveyed that the previous hour guarantees would not be restored and that the new expense of paying into a union health plan factored into that decision. The union believes this amounts to a violation of federal labor law, which generally speaking prohibits an employer from unilaterally changing terms and conditions of employment without bargaining with the union first, unless the union has obviously waived that right.
The 12- and 14-hour guarantees were not enshrined in the union’s labor contracts on Chicago Med and Chicago Fire. The union has not yet filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
The union further alleges that a sister show that is not unionized by LiUNA Local 724, Chicago P.D., has retained its 12-hour guarantees and recently gave production assistants a three percent raise after two seasons without a pay bump.
The production assistants on Chicago Fire voted in a National Labor Relations Board election to unionize in late 2025 and their peers on Chicago Med followed suit in Feb. 2026. The two groups ratified their union contracts in July, which offered wage increases, access to union health care and the institution of career development committees aimed at helping early-career workers advance.
