Scabby the Rat has spent decades appearing wherever organized labor believes workers are getting squeezed. This week, the giant inflatable rodent found himself a new gig in show business. Specifically for the PAs, otherwise known as Production Assistants.
LIUNA Local 724 staged informational pickets outside production locations for NBC’s Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, including the real firehouse on Blue Island Avenue used as the exterior of Firehouse 51, protesting what the union says happened almost immediately after PAs on the two shows won their first union contracts.
According to Local 724 and Production Assistants United, PAs on both shows had for years received guaranteed twelve and fourteen-hour workdays, with those guarantees written into individual deal memos. Because overtime begins after eight hours, those long days provided a significant portion of workers’ weekly income.
Their hourly wage is $19.93.
After the workers unionized and ratified contracts with Universal Television in July, however, the union says those longstanding guarantees suddenly disappeared. Some PAs now report being scheduled for eight-hour days, eliminating the overtime they had historically depended upon.
Local 724 says the change was never proposed during bargaining and that the union never agreed to eliminate the guarantees. “Unionizing should raise standards. It should never be used as an excuse to slash a worker’s paycheck,” Production Assistants United wrote Friday on Instagram.
“For years, PAs on Chicago Fire and Chicago Med received 12- and 14-hour daily guarantees written into their deal memos. After they unionized, suddenly they were cut to 8 hours.”
The organization added that the change “was never proposed or discussed during negotiations” and called on NBCUniversal to restore the guarantees and make affected workers whole.
“Nothing says ‘we respect our crews’ like changing their pay terms after negotiations and hoping nobody notices,” the group added in the comments. “@nbcuniversal can fix this.”
How much are workers losing?
The exact impact appears to vary from worker to worker. Production Assistants United’s latest Instagram post says some PAs have already lost as much as 25 percent of their weekly pay.
Earlier reporting from The Hollywood Reporter, citing Local 724, put the potential loss even higher, saying some Chicago Fire production assistants had experienced a 43 percent drop in weekly take-home pay.
The difference may reflect individual schedules, different weeks or updated calculations, but neither the union nor the productions have publicly reconciled the two figures.
Either way, the issue goes beyond simply working shorter days.
For production assistants earning $19.93 an hour, the traditional television production schedule meant overtime was effectively part of their expected income. A twelve-hour day included four hours at time-and-a-half. A fourteen-hour day provided even more.
Cut those workers to eight hours and the hourly wage technically remains unchanged while their weekly paycheck can fall dramatically. “Production Assistants are among the lowest-paid workers in television production,” Local 724 business manager Alex Aguilar told The Hollywood Reporter. “Workers should not lose the income they have historically relied upon simply because they chose to unionize.”
The contracts brought real gains
The dispute comes only weeks after what initially appeared to be a significant labor victory for Chicago production assistants.
Workers on Chicago Fire voted to unionize in late 2025, becoming the first production assistant group within Dick Wolf’s One Chicago franchise to organize with Production Assistants United and LIUNA Local 724.
Their counterparts on Chicago Med followed in February. The two groups ratified their first union agreements in July. The contracts brought wage increases, access to union health benefits, improved meal-break protections and career-development initiatives designed to help early-career workers advance within the industry.
Those benefits were significant for a job classification that has historically existed outside many of Hollywood’s traditional union structures.
Production assistants perform some of the least glamorous but most essential work on a film or television set: controlling pedestrian and vehicle traffic, running equipment and paperwork, assisting departments, moving crews, locking down locations and handling the endless logistical tasks that keep a production moving.
Some PAs on Chicago Fire have reportedly worked on the series for as long as eight years.
That longevity complicates the traditional idea of production assisting as merely a temporary entry-level stop on the way to something else, particularly as contraction across the film and television business has narrowed opportunities for advancement.
The ‘Chicago P.D.’ comparison
Then there is the uncomfortable comparison across the rest of the One Chicago universe.
Production assistants on Chicago P.D. did not organize with Local 724. According to reporting from the Chicago Tribune and The Hollywood Reporter, those workers have retained their twelve-hour guarantees. THR also reported that Chicago P.D. PAs recently received a three percent raise after going two seasons without a pay increase.
Local 724 has pointed directly to that contrast. For the union, the timing raises the question at the heart of the dispute: Why did the historical guarantees allegedly disappear on the two shows whose PAs organized while remaining intact on the show whose workers did not?
Production Assistants United was less subtle in its Instagram post. “That contrast should set off every union-busting alarm,” the organization wrote.
That remains the union’s characterization. No government agency has determined that NBCUniversal retaliated against workers for unionizing.
Could the cuts violate labor law?
Local 724 believes the hour reductions may constitute an unlawful unilateral change in working conditions.
Generally, wages and work hours are mandatory subjects of collective bargaining under federal labor law. Once employees are represented by a union, employers typically cannot materially change those conditions without bargaining unless the union has clearly waived that right.
The union says it did not waive the twelve and fourteen-hour guarantees.
There is, however, an important wrinkle: those guarantees were not explicitly incorporated into the new collective bargaining agreements themselves, despite previously appearing in workers’ individual deal memos.
That may ultimately become central to any legal dispute. Local 724 has not yet filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. Aguilar has said the union could pursue one if the issue is not resolved and may also consider filing a contractual grievance.
It would ultimately be up to the NLRB or another appropriate forum — not the union or NBCUniversal — to determine whether any labor law violation occurred.
NBCUniversal declined to comment to the Chicago Tribune. The Hollywood Reporter also sought comment from NBCUniversal and Wolf Entertainment when it reported on the dispute.
Scabby arrives at Firehouse 51
For now, Local 724 is taking the argument directly to the streets.
The union erected banners and Scabby outside production sites Wednesday, including the Engine 18 firehouse on Blue Island Avenue that doubles as Firehouse 51 on Chicago Fire.
Interior production for Chicago Fire and Chicago Med takes place at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios on the city’s West Side, a facility that has helped anchor Illinois’ film and television production industry for more than a decade.
The arrival of Scabby makes what could otherwise sound like a technical contract dispute difficult to miss.
The inflatable rat has long been one of organized labor’s most recognizable symbols, traditionally appearing outside workplaces where unions accuse employers of undermining wages, working conditions or collective bargaining rights.
And this is not the first time Hollywood has seen him.
Scabby has had a strange year in Hollywood
Scabby has already made one particularly ironic Hollywood appearance this year. During the nearly three-month strike by employees of the Writers Guild of America West against Guild management, the Writers Guild Staff Union erected the inflatable rat outside WGA headquarters at Third and Fairfax. The sight of organized labor’s famous rat protesting outside the headquarters of one of Hollywood’s most powerful unions became a striking symbol of the dispute.
The Writers Guild Staff Union, representing employees who work inside the organization, launched a walkout after contract talks broke down. Scabby appeared outside WGA West headquarters as staff members accused Guild management of unfair labor practices and bad-faith bargaining — allegations the Guild disputed.
That strike eventually ended after the WGA staff union and management reached a tentative first agreement that included wage increases, seniority and layoff protections, progressive discipline and a grievance process.
So when Scabby surfaced outside Chicago Fire this week, he came with some very recent Hollywood history attached. The rat may be inflatable, but the message he carries is rarely subtle.
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A broader fight over who gets protected
The dispute also fits into a larger movement to organize production assistants, one of the few major groups on film and television sets that historically remained outside traditional Hollywood unions.
Production Assistants United, working through LIUNA Local 724, has been part of a broader organizing push that accelerated after the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
PAs on HBO Max’s The Pitt ratified one of the first major union contracts for production assistants, gaining Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health benefits and employer-paid training. Other organizing victories have followed on shows including Abbott Elementary and The Four Seasons.
An estimated 22,000 entertainment workers in nontraditional or early-career classifications unionized nationwide between 2023 and 2025, according to labor reporting cited in coverage of the Chicago dispute.
That makes what is happening on Chicago Fire and Chicago Med more than a local scheduling disagreement.
These shows are among the most visible television productions in Chicago and have become central to the city’s production economy.
Chicago Fire is entering its 15th season. Chicago Med is heading into its 12th. Along with Chicago P.D., the Dick Wolf-produced franchise has employed generations of Chicago actors, craftspeople, technicians and production workers while making the city itself an essential character.
And there is a certain irony in where this particular labor dispute has landed. The fictional worlds of Chicago Fire and Chicago Med are built around people doing difficult jobs, relying on one another and refusing to leave members of their teams behind.
Outside those sets, some of the lowest-paid workers helping create those stories are now asking whether anyone is looking out for them.
“Restore the guarantees. Make the affected PAs whole,” Production Assistants United wrote. “Respect the workers who make these shows possible.”
For now, Scabby is making sure people notice.
This story is ongoing…
