Barcelona dubbers demand same salaries as in Madrid

Voice-over actors in Barcelona demand that dubbing companies pay them the same salaries as they pay actors in Madrid. This is the demand of the dubbing actors' union, United Dubbing of Barcelona (DUB), which has decided to postpone a strike in order to work on reaching a partial agreement with dubbing companies and management that will improve the salaries of directors and dubbing scriptwriters. 

"A timeframe until June has been given to negotiate improvements for the actors," Masumi Metsuda, the president of the DUB told the Catalan News Agency (ACN). "We do the same work equally well, and we think we are entitled to at least a similar salary," he adds.  

According to Metsuda, some voice-over actors in Madrid earn 23% more than their counterparts in Barcelona.  

He explains that in Catalonia there is no collective bargaining agreement that regulates the salaries voice actors in Catalonia, as there is in Madrid.      

"In Madrid, the dubbers have a collective pay agreement that improves every year, which means that the salaries have changed a lot from those of the dubbers in Barcelona," he explains. 

The salaries of dubbers in Madrid must be adjusted to the consumer price index, while there is no such requirement in Barcelona.  

After demanding changes in Barcelona for some time without positive results, the DUB saw no other option but to call a strike earlier this year.  

Initially, the union announced a timeframe of 20 days to reach an agreement on pay improvements between workers and companies.  

In the end, a tentative agreement was reached that would benefit directors or dubbing scriptwriters effective "immediately", and the strike was called off one day before it was set to begin, on January 30.  

Now, the union has extended their deadline until June to reach an agreement for voice actors.  

Artificial intelligence 

Another issue that has raised alarm bells in the dubbing industry is the lack of regulations regarding the use of dubbers' voices to train artificial intelligence, and the Mutsuda told ACN that all distributors have accepted clauses to guarantee that the dubbers' work will not be used for this purpose.  

However, the president stresses that there is still much work to be done in the video game industry in this regard.