The Screen Actors Guild voted to strike, which means actors will join writers on the picket lines for the first time in more than half a century, per TMZ. The last SAG-AFTRA strike was in 1960, back when Ronald Reagan was the president of the SAG. The board met Thursday morning and voted unanimously to strike after its contract ran out.
The main points the SAG are fighting for are minimum pay, residuals that consider streaming, healthcare, pensions, and regulation around self-tapes in the casting process. Although both Hollywood studios and the SAG agreed to have a federal mediator join negotiations, it failed to come to a conclusion.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said the studios’ responses to their demands “insulting and disrespectful,” adding, “Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal.”
With the strike, actors cannot work on film and TV projects across the globe, and aren’t allowed to do any promotions for upcoming projects (like press and premieres).
This came after the SAG wrote a letter last month, citing their demands.
“We hope you’ve heard the message from us: This is an unprecedented inflection point in our industry, and what might be considered a good deal in any other years is simply not enough,” the letter said. “We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom, and the power of our union have all been undermined in the last decade. We need to reverse those trajectories.”
“We want you to know that we would rather go on strike than compromise on these fundamental points, and we believe that, if we settle for a less than transformative deal, the future of our union and our craft will be undermined, and SAG-AFTRA will enter the next negotiation with drastically reduced leverage.”
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