'Double Strike' Paralyzes Hollywood After Screen Actors Guild Negotiations Collapse
08:49 14.07.2023 (Updated: 13:03 14.07.2023)
© AFP 2024 VALERIE MACON
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After negotiations on a new contract collapsed early Thursday, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union, which represents some 170,000 TV and movie actors, will go on strike at midnight. It is the first major strike by actors in four decades, and the first during a writers' strike in six.
The labor union’s national board voted on Thursday morning to authorize a strike several hours after talks with The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of Hollywood companies, collapsed.
The previous three-year contract expired on Wednesday at midnight after having been extended from June 30 to allow for more time to complete the talks.
According to Eleven Films, some 95% of the union’s members make less than $25,000 per year.
“If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher: "How they plead poverty that they are losing money left and right when they give $100 millions to their CEOs."
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 13, 2023
“If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines” pic.twitter.com/zIIsNQjZHa
“The eyes of labor are upon us. What is happening to us is happening across all fields of labor. When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and forget the essential contributors that make the machine run, we have a problem. This is a very seminal hour for us. I went in in earnest, thinking we would be able to avert a strike. The gravity of this moment is not lost on me, our negotiating committee or our national board.”
“It came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads, but we had no choice,” she continued. “We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, how far apart we are on so many things, how they plead poverty while giving millions of dollars to their CEOs. Shame on them! They are on the wrong side of history!”
Disney CEO Bob Iger called the strike “very disturbing,” rejecting the union’s demands as “not realistic” in the current media environment.
"We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from COVID which is ongoing, it’s not completely back,” Iger told US media. “This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption."
The actors’ strike comes as the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike enters its third month. Some 9,000 television and film writers have been on the picket lines since early May, with demands over many similar issues, including how the rise of streaming services has sharply cut into the work they receive.
The scene at @netflix #SAGAFTRAstrong #1u #WGAstrike https://t.co/EO340ffQPf pic.twitter.com/ijJsmxOFrJ
— Writers Guild of America West (@WGAWest) July 13, 2023
The picket line outside Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, California, was ecstatic at the news of a SAG-AFTRA strike, chanting “hey hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go!”
Recent reports in US media have revealed the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), who represent Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others, are determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec put it.
“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told one entertainment industry-focused outlet, which noted that several other sources reiterated the statement.
The AMPTP later issued a statement refuting the reports, saying “these anonymous people are not speaking on behalf of the AMPTP or member companies, who are committed to reaching a deal and getting our industry back to work.”
