SAG-AFTRA Advises Members To “Continue To Work” In Event Of A WGA Strike

WGA strike.“We are grateful for the contribution writers make to our company and respect their right to demonstrate it may take some time, but I know we will eventually get through this and the result will be a stronger foundation on which we can all move forward together,” Chairman of NBCUniversal Mark Lazarus said during the New York event. Unsurprisingly, the event scaled back on its celebrities, relying on more executives and reality TV stars to introduce its clips and segments.

SAG-AFTRA’s leadership, although often divided along internal party lines, presented a united front at the Los Angeles local’s annual membership meeting yesterday. They stressed the importance of solidarity in advance of the guild’s upcoming contract negotiations, sources tell Deadline.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher has told her members that as the union prepares for its upcoming contract negotiations, which start June 7: “We must focus on modernizing our outdated and conservative contract. It is essential that we reshape our agreement to better reflect the new digital and streaming business model that is rapidly changing our industry.”

WGA strike continues and SAG-AFTRA looks to begin its own negotiations with the studios in June, SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland not only expressed solidarity with the WGA, but explained how actors’ problems are similar to those facing writers during a panel on the state of the TV industry.Speaking during the panel at SeriesFest in Denver on Monday, Crabtree-Ireland said current conditions in the industry are “not right.”“I think we all understand that things have been moving in the wrong direction as a result of the technological innovations in the industry, and that really has to stop because we can’t have a vital industry if the people who are responsible for creating all of that content can’t have a career, can’t pay for their basic living expenses,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “It’s not right.

As you have no doubt already heard, the WGA is on strike right now. Just over a week into it, this strike has already caused quite a few disruptions, with productions being halted and development coming to a standstill.

When are things not strange in Hollywood? Should we be surprised that there is always some industry or world crises crashing an awards season? Probably not, but it’s been quite a long time since a work stoppage affected the Primetime Emmy Awards. And, as we’ll discuss later, that means while writers form picket lines, actors and directors are still engaged in that Emmy nomination fight.

Angelique Jackson SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher had a sobering message for Hollywood’s major studios as she joined a WGA picket line outside Paramount Pictures on Monday afternoon. “They feel like this strike is a strike for everybody in the industry,” Drescher said of SAG-AFTRA members and the WGA’s labor action. Drescher, who was elected SAG-AFTRA president in September 2021, marched arm in arm with Writers Guild of America West president Meredith Stiehm in a show of solidarity, joining a coalition of a few hundred members from each guild who were picketing outside Paramount starting at 9 a.m. PT as week two of the WGA strike began.

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher joined members of her guild marching in solidarity with Writers Guild of America members Monday on the picket lines in front of the entrance to Paramount Pictures’ backlot.Amid this display of solidarity, Drescher is preparing with SAG-AFTRA to begin talks on their own new contract, and she is signaling that actors need major change in Hollywood just as much as writers.“We can’t keep building on a contract that was developed in the 1980s,” Drescher told TheWrap. “I’m hoping that we go in with a new perspective, a different portal to enter the conversation just as we did with other talks that we were successful in resolving.

On the seventh day of the Writers Guild of America’s strike against Hollywood studios, guild leaders from both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, including actors union president Fran Drescher, hit the picket lines at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles.

Another TV shoot has been disrupted by striking writers, Michelle and Robert King’s supernatural drama for Paramount+ Evil, which has been filming its fourth season at Brooklyn Stages in Brooklyn.

“You make billions/pay us some!” striking Writers Guild of America members chanted on the street of New York today near where filming was going on for Showtime’s Billions.

SAG-AFTRA, in partnership with the Motion Picture Association and a host of other industry unions and organizations, has launched the Green Council Initiative to promote eco-responsible entertainment. Founded by SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, the initiative’s top priority is the reduction of single-use plastic on set, on screen and in audience homes, while normalizing the use and depictions of reusables – much like the “Buckle Up Hollywood!” movement pushed to promote seat belt awareness back in the 1990s.

SAG-AFTRA, which starts its contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on June 7, is in “the same boat” with the Writers Guild as it strikes for a fair contract, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told a cheering crowd Wednesday night at the WGA strike rally at the Shrine Auditorium.

SAG-AFTRA has once again – and for the last time – extended its dues-relief program for members experiencing Covid-related financial hardship. The union first began offering Covid dues relief in March 2020 during the earliest days of the pandemic. All along, however, it has encouraged members who can pay on time to do so.

SAG-AFTRA and the Joint Policy Committee of the advertising industry have agreed to end their Covid safety protocols for commercial productions effective May 11.

As negotiations for a new Writers Guild contract enter their final phase, the Association of Talent Agents has sent its member-agencies a 22-page summary of the “force majeure” provisions contained in the contracts of the WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the DGA. Force majeure, the ATA notes, “is a provision in a contract that addresses the parties’ obligations if an extraordinary event directly prevents one or both parties from performing.”

began on March 20 with several issues that needed to be addressed. At the top of the list was the issue of compensation for streaming TV shows and films and the abuse of mini-rooms in which studios require writers with a TV show pitch to assemble a writers’ room at scale pay to produce scripts before the pitch is even greenlit.More than 9,000 WGA members voted on April 17 to authorize their leaders to order a strike if a deal was not met and a drastic change was not in the future.

William Earl SAG-AFTRA’s national board has lent its support to the WGA as the latter guild buckles down for a last sprint of negotiations next week in the days leading up to the May 1 expiration of film and TV writers’ master contract with Hollywood’s major employers. “SAG-AFTRA stands strongly in support and solidarity with the members of the Writers Guild of America who are engaged in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It is long past time for the studios, streamers, and other employers in the entertainment industry to remove roadblocks to fair and equitable wages and working conditions, and to agree to terms that reflect the unique worth and contribution of creative talent and workers, without whom the industry would not exist,” read a resolution passed Saturday by a unanimous vote of SAG-AFTRA’s national board.

SAG-AFTRA’s National Board voted unanimously today to approve a resolution “strongly in support” of the WGA in its ongoing negotiations for a new film and TV contract. “It is long past time for the studios, streamers, and other employers in the entertainment industry to remove roadblocks to fair and equitable wages and working conditions,” the resolution states, “and to agree to terms that reflect the unique worth and contribution of creative talent and workers, without whom the industry would not exist.”

DGA leaders have informed their members of their rights and responsibilities in the event of a writers strike against the studios.