Preparing For Possible Strike, SAG-AFTRA Surveys Members About How They Can Help Out

SAG-AFTRA is making picket signs in the event of a strike next week.

William Earl With five days to go, SAG-AFTRA is stepping up its efforts to prepare for going on strike even as contract negotiations with Hollywood’s major studios intensify. On Thursday, SAG-AFTRA distributed a survey to its 160,000 members and alerted them that the union would be calling for volunteers to help make signs, work phone banks, distribute T-shirts and generally support a mobilization of pickets on the streets of Los Angeles, New York and selected other locations. The email message includes a survey of members’ availability to picket outside studio gates, New York offices and other key locations. SAG-AFTRA members have already been out in force on picketing efforts mounted by the Writers Guild of America, which went on strike May 2. Many rank-and-file SAG-AFTRA members are fired up about issues on the table in this difficult season of Hollywood labor negotiations. By contrast, the Directors Guild of America has ratified a new three-year contract in a deal reached last month without much drama.

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The Writer Guild of America said Wednesday that “we stand in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA as they bargain for a contract that truly works for all their members.” It’s the first comment the WGA has made on the SAG-AFTRA talks since the actors’ union last week extended its contract until July 12 to allow negotiations for a new film and TV contract to continue.

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SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations for a new contract are making headway “in some areas” but not in others, Fran Drescher, the guild’s president, said in an interview today on ABC’s Good Morning America.  

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Madonna's worried family say they "prepared for the worst" after the star was rushed to ICU with a "serious bacterial infection". It's claimed the popstar was found unconscious in New York on Saturday and was rushed to hospital.

Madonna’s relatives were allegedly “preparing for the worst” after she was admitted to intensive care last week.It was reported last night that the 64-year-old pop icon was hospitalised and spent time in an intensive care unit after she was diagnosed with a severe bacterial infection. She is now in a stable condition and is “expected to make a full recovery”.The news of her health was announced by her longtime manager Guy Oseary, who revealed on Instagram that the singer would be postponing all of the dates on her upcoming 40th-anniversary tour following a medical emergency.Now, a relative has revealed that the condition was so serious that Madonna’s family members were “preparing for the worst”, as they all “believed they we may lose her”.“For the past couple of days, no one really knew which direction this was going to turn, and her family was preparing for the worst,” the relative told the DailyMail.

EXCLUSIVE: After it emerged that over 300 actors had written to SAG-AFTRA leadership that they are “prepared to strike” if the guild doesn’t “get all the way there” during talks with the studios, the number of actors signing the letter has more than tripled overnight.

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More than 300 actors have signed a letter addressed to the SAG-AFTRA Leadership and Negotiating Committee.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer A group of more than 400 actors — including Oscar winners Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Rami Malek — are urging SAG-AFTRA leaders to take a harder line as contract talks reach a critical point. The members sent an internal letter Tuesday to the union’s negotiating committee and the leadership. They emphasized that “we are prepared to strike if it comes to that.” “And we are concerned by the idea that SAG-AFTRA members may be ready to make sacrifices that leadership is not,” they continued. The contract expires on Friday, and the leadership has the power to call a strike as soon as Saturday if no agreement is reached.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Canadian filmmaker Jamie Kastner has launched a fundraiser to support his legal costs in fighting the Ontario Provincial Police against a production order that could force him to surrender the source material for his documentary. Kastner is the director of “There Are No Fakes,” a 2019 doc that uncovered an art fraud ring that passed off fake paintings as originals by the celebrated Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau, known for his vibrant paintings of the natural world and First Nations mythology. The eye-opening film revealed there were up to 10 times more Morrisseau forgeries on the market as there were real works, and that the artist’s own nephew may have been complicit in helping to produce the fakes.

SAG-AFTRA leaders painted a sunny picture of their ongoing negotiations in a video released over the weekend, saying the talks have been “extremely productive” and promising to reach a “seminal deal.” But according to multiple sources with knowledge of the dynamic in the negotiating room, the sides remain far apart on a range of key issues. With just a few days left before SAG-AFTRA’s current contract expires on Friday, some are privately predicting that talks will be extended beyond the June 30 deadline, though such a move has not formally been broached in the negotiating room with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

about a woman who was able to convince her friends and family that she had cancer for nearly a decade — convincing them to give her more than $100,000 for “treatment” in the process— has captivated listeners.Amanda Riley, a former teacher and principal from Northern California, was last May to five years in federal prison for wire fraud in the scheme, which she pled guilty to in October 2021. From 2012 to 2019, Riley had told friends, family, and internet strangers, via social media and a blog, that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the US Attorney’s office said, adding she “used her presence on these sites to ‘document’ her nonexistent medical condition, and to aggressively solicit donations, supposedly to cover her medical expenses.”In order to keep up her scheme, Riley shaved her head, falsified medical records, and even sued a local journalist, Nancy Muscatello, who had grown suspicious of her and began to dig into Riley and her blog.