The Brief

With the dual Hollywood strikes in motion, the news has been a bit of an alphabet soup lately. There’s SAG, the Screen Actors Guild; there’s WGA, the Writer’s Guild of America; and then there’s that more ambiguous mouthful: the AMPTP.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is the trade group for more than 350 studios and streamers who negotiate contracts with virtually all of the entertainment industry’s unions and guilds.

An insider joke told through the grapevine is that the AMPTP was formed to say "no." That’s obviously from the point of view of the unions, but the businesses are focused on protecting their bottom lines. So what exactly is this alliance and who’s in it?

What is the AMPTP?

The AMPTP is the ace up Hollywood’s sleeve. The alliance is full of lawyers and top studio and streamer executives who, in any other scenario, would be competitors, trying to elbow each other out of the way to secure the next big hit and make the most money.

But in the labor relations world, it’s a different story. Here, they team up to achieve a common goal: getting the best deal they can in hardline union negotiations to protect their bottom lines.

Some notable members are Paramount, Sony and Universal. And with the rise of streaming, Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon have also signed up. The alliance also represents studios that aren’t as big, like the independent production company A24.

The AMPTP usually stays out of the spotlight, quietly negotiating union contracts without much fuss. Most contracts are usually in place for three years, but each negotiation can start at different times. Here are some of the big unions they bargain with:

• American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
• Directors Guild of America (DGA)
• International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
• Laborers Local 724
• Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)
• Teamsters, Local #399
• Writers Guild of America (WGA)

According to the AMPTP, they negotiate 58 bargaining agreements overall. When the unions aren’t happy and they go on strike, that’s when the public hears about them most.

But being out of the spotlight doesn’t mean they aren’t doing anything. They’re also quietly involved in legislative affairs and big industry-wide issues.

Like you have with any corporate group, hob-nobbing with the politically powerful is like a secret menu item at In-N-Out. Everyone knows schmoozing is high on the agenda but it’s kept on the low.

Throughout the years that the collective of studios has been around, they’ve hosted princes, foreign governors and other dignitaries for studio tours, gala dinners and more.

A brief history of how the AMPTP formed

Let's go back to the beginning. A hundred years ago, when all we had were movies, workers were eager for better conditions.

In 1927, the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences (which puts on the Oscars) was a young organization that wanted to find a way to stop employees from unionizing. Executives devised a plan to keep unions out that first involved a banquet, and industry workers getting invited to join the organization. Over time, more people joined and labor disputes were handled in-house.

Eventually, workers across the industry unionized and the Academy’s leadership was faced with a fight it didn’t want. So, it handed off the ball. It turned to the much smaller Association of Motion Picture Producers (AMPP) (we know, it’s dizzying), which had been formed a few years earlier to manage the industry’s representation in public and government. Although it only had a handful of big names, like Columbia Pictures, Universal and Warner Brothers, it eventually took over the responsibility for negotiations in the mid-1930s.

A crowd of film technicians assembled at the Paramount Pictures gate, waiting to go back to their jobs on August 26, 1933. The union called off the strike as a result of a settlement reached by the NRA labor chiefs in Washington.

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Courtesy of Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

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Over the decades, more members joined. And then, television happened. In 1960, the WGA and SAG went on strike over giving writers and actors residuals when their movies were shown on TV, shutting down Hollywood. The TV producers had their own trade group — the Alliance of Television Film Producers — but in 1964, they merged with the AMPP.

The collective group was renamed the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (yep, that was AMPTP too). The choice was likely a way to consolidate power should another labor dispute threaten widescale Hollywood production.

Independent producers joined the ranks a couple years later and slowly over time, more and more companies came together to build up the strong labor relations group.

But they weren’t always unified. Universal and Paramount quit the trade group for a time in the 1970s, and so did Walt Disney productions. Paramount and Universal, which were some of the oldest members of the AMPP when it began, left and formed their own labor relations group called the Alliance.

But time is a flat circle, and in 1982, they all merged to form the AMPTP (second time’s a charm?). And although streamers have joined the ranks in recent years, the acronym seems to be sticking this time.

Nithya Raman turned the tide in the L.A. mayoral race by winning over large swathes of the city that voted for Karen Bass in 2022, according to an LAist analysis of election data.

Bass was a favorite in many areas that voted for Rick Caruso when she faced him in 2022. She held onto a majority of voters across South L.A., but lost much of her previous support.

The switchup came after Bass — a veteran in progressive politics — took a relatively-conservative approach on issues like policing and high-density housing developments compared to Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority told its employees Friday to stop work, shut down their computers and stay off agency systems while it looked into “a potential security issue affecting our systems,” its chief executive confirmed to LAist.

That shutdown order was still in place Monday evening, according to a LAHSA official not authorized to speak on the record.

Gita O'Neill, the agency’s interim CEO, told LAist on Friday evening that the agency did not “yet have enough information to say definitively whether any sensitive or confidential personal information was accessed.”

She has not answered questions about whether or not services for unhoused people are disrupted.

Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of LAHSA, speaks ahead of the annual homeless count on Jan. 20, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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LAHSA holds highly sensitive information collected from people experiencing homelessness in the region. The agency oversees the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, which includes unhoused people’s names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and disabilities, as well as self-reported mental health and substance abuse history, income sources and domestic violence history.

In a statement Monday, LAHSA said it had taken its internal computer systems offline “as a precaution” and “engaged outside cybersecurity specialists to investigate the nature and scope of the incident.” The statement, sent on O'Neill's behalf by outside public relations strategist Trevor Daley, continued to call it “a potential cybersecurity incident.”

The agency is “taking steps to maintain essential operations,” the statement added, saying LAHSA “remains open” while the investigation continues. It said the agency is working with its technical and legal teams.

What staff were told

Friday’s email to "Team LAHSA" carried the subject line "URGENT: Log Off and Shut Down for the Week." LAist obtained a copy, and O'Neill confirmed by text message that she had sent it.

“As a precaution while we look into a potential security issue affecting our systems, we're asking all staff to stop work and take their machines offline for the remainder of today and through the weekend,” the email said.

It told employees to “Log off and shut down your LAHSA computer” and not to log back in or connect to LAHSA systems, including email, “until you receive an all-clear from us.”

The email also told staff to report anything “unusual” before shutting down, such as “files renaming on their own, unexpected pop-ups or messages.”

What LAHSA leadership has said

In a texted response to LAist on Friday evening, O'Neill said she asked staff to take their computers offline “out of an abundance of caution” while the agency’s IT team assessed the situation.

“Our IT team is actively reviewing the situation now and working to understand exactly what occurred and whether any information was affected,” she wrote. “Protecting people’s personal and confidential information is a top priority in that review.”

Leaders of three LAHSA-funded service providers told LAist on Monday afternoon that they had not received any communications from LAHSA about the potential cybersecurity issue. All three use the HMIS system that holds unhoused people’s personal details.

Previous attacks against another LA housing agency

Another L.A. housing agency was previously hit by cyberattacks. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles — a separate agency known as HACLA — has said hackers got inside its network in 2022 and may have accessed people’s names, Social Security numbers, financial accounts numbers and medical information.

Two years later, HACLA was breached again, according to an official notice, with hackers potentially accessing names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and phone numbers.

LAist reporter Aaron Schrank contributed reporting to this story.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced Monday that she is running to be the county’s first elected chief executive. Horvath is the only candidate so far to enter the race, which is set for 2028.

The new executive post will take the place of the county’s appointed CEO and implement key priorities of the county Board of Supervisors. The executive will oversee the county budget, which is currently roughly $50 billion, and labor relations with more than 100,000 employees.

Horvath was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022 and was re-elected in June to another four-year term. She represents the county’s 3rd District, which covers the San Fernando Valley and parts of the Westside and Central Los Angeles. She is a former mayor of West Hollywood.

The supervisor made her announcement Monday via social media and her campaign website. She called the race a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

The backstory

Voters created the position in 2024 when they approved Measure G, which was proposed by Supervisors Horvath and Janice Hahn.

Among other changes, the measure allowed the Board of Supervisors to expand from five to nine members by 2030 and established an independent Ethics Commission, which held its first meeting last month.

The pushback

On Monday, Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement saying she believed it was “premature” to campaign for the new county executive position when it remained unclear whether “the office itself is constitutional.”

Barger pointed to questions raised by former federal judge Stephen Larson about whether California’s Constitution allows an elected county executive to veto board decisions, control county contracts and take on powers state law currently gives the Board of Supervisors.

“Moving forward with an office that would fundamentally change how Los Angeles County is governed, without first resolving these questions, is putting the cart before the horse,” Barger said in her statement. “We need clarity.”

The primary election is scheduled for March 7, 2028.