On July 7, local time, the Screen Actors Guild sent an email to all members, indicating that a full-scale strike of film and television actors sweeping through Hollywood is likely to come.
The Screen Actors Guild refers to replay share treatment
Like the American Screenwriters Guild on strike, the opposite of the Screen Actors Guild is the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, founded in 1924, which represents the interests of three to four hundred film and television production companies across the United States, and is responsible for negotiating interests with industry organizations such as the Screenwriters' Union, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Directors Union, in order to obtain the best interests for the capital.
The Screen Actors Guild has already prepared for the production of strike signs
Since June 30, the original contract between the Film and Television Producers Union and the Screen Actors Guild has expired. However, since the two sides began negotiations on June 7, they have not been able to reach a consensus on a new contract. The two sides agreed at the end of last month to postpone the deadline day until July 12 slightly. But at present, it seems that even on this day, I am afraid that it will be difficult for the two sides to reach an agreement at once, and the possibility of actors going on strike is increasing.
If that is the case, there will be a rare scene in American history of a double strike by the screenwriters' union and the actors union, and all Hollywood film and television projects that are being filmed or in preparation will be 100% completely stopped. This is a great disaster for the US film and television industry, which has only recovered from the three-year epidemic.
Although during the entire negotiation period, labor and management have already agreed to impose a silent order on the media so as not to affect the overall situation, according to sources, the main demands of the actor union are basically the same as the screenwriters' union, mainly hoping to get better replay sharing treatment in the current development of online streaming media. After all, in the perspective of traditional TV stations, how many times it has been rebroadcast and roughly how much revenue it has generated, these are easy to count and monitor. But in the era of online streaming media, how many users have on-demand a certain work, companies like Netflix once kept this secret, and there is still a problem that the on-demand rate is not transparent enough, which makes the actors and screenwriters involved in the production complain.
The reason is that for those first-line, second-tier and third-tier big-name actors, although they can get huge profits at one time with huge salaries, there are still tens of thousands of ordinary actors, who have been retiring, resting or being eliminated by the film and television industry, relying on the replay fee of past works to retire, and this part of the income is extremely important to them. At present, it seems that labor and management have a lot of differences on this sharing cost, which makes the possibility of strike higher and higher.
Strike signage
The main message sent by the Screen Actors Guild to members of the Screen Actors Guild was that once a strike took place, the union hoped to recruit enough volunteers to help stand up and shout slogans, raise signs, and picket order during the strike. "Part of the key to the success of the strike lies in the work of pickets, that is, peaceful demonstrations and protests outside the workplaces of relevant enterprises, in order to arouse the attention of the outside world to our just cause, to prevent the continuation of all film and television filming, and to combat the scabs, the strike-breakers." For this, we need your voluntary participation, and the more people the better. ”
In addition, the email is accompanied by a survey form asking everyone to write their specific contact information; willingness to participate in upcoming demonstrations in New York and Los Angeles; When you are available; What specific tasks can be undertaken, such as signage production, material distribution and leading the shouting of slogans.
Showbiz has a long tradition of strikes
Founded in 2012 by the merger of Screen Actors Guild in 1933 and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, founded in 1937, SAG-AFTRA now has about 160,000 members. Basically, every Hollywood actor we know or are not familiar with is a member of it, pays a fixed membership fee every year, and its rights and interests are protected by the union, and they must also be united in hatred and unanimity when the union declares a strike.
Historically, the Screen Actors Guild, like the Screenwriters' Guild, has long had a precedent for strikes. The earliest was in the distant years of 1952 and 1955, and the appeal was the same as this time, hoping to get more revenue when the TV work was rerun. In March 1960, the Screen Actors Guild, under the leadership of then-president Ronald Reagan, went on strike again. This time, the main thing is to ask the eight major Hollywood film companies to provide better pension insurance and social security benefits for actors. After six weeks of negotiations, the two sides finally reached a compromise and the actors returned to various crews, but many films were filmed without immediate progress because the American Writers' Guild, which had been on strike since the early 1960s, had not yet reached an agreement with management. And that is the only time in Hollywood history that the Screenwriters Guild and the Screen Actors Guild have gone on strike. That time, the strike of the screenwriters' union lasted for half a year and did not end until June, which brought a big impact to Hollywood studios.
Twenty years later, in July 1980, the Screen Actors Guild went on strike again, mainly for a salary increase. As a result of the strike, the TV Emmy Awards ceremony held in September of that year, of all 52 nominated actors, only the miniseries "Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones" starring Bowers Booth attended the ceremony, but fortunately the union did not punish him for scabing behavior afterwards, and the strike lasted until the end of October, and the minimum salary of Hollywood actors was raised by 32.25%.
In the four decades since, the Screen Actors Guild has also carried out some local strikes, mainly against advertising agencies, such as ordering all members to stop shooting certain TV commercials, which did not affect Hollywood film and television production. On the contrary, the Writers' Union, in 2007 and 2008, also carried out a large-scale strike, which has relatively more experience. Speaking of which, it has been two months since the official start of the writers' union strike on May 2, but the labor and management have not shown any intention to compromise and retreat.
Hollywood unions share the same hatred
During the two months of large-scale strikes by Hollywood screenwriters, union members took turns outside the office buildings of film and television companies in New York and Los Angeles, putting up various slogans and shouting slogans to declare their strength. In addition, many screenwriters have been sent to the filming sites of those film and television crews who are still insisting on work, trying to force them to stop work, which has really received a lot of results. For example, the Marvel series "Wonder Man" that was already being filmed, the second season of the Apple series "Loot", and the spin-off of "The Penguin" of "Batman" have all stopped filming because of this external pressure.
Specifically, the success of this pressure is due to the comradeship among Hollywood film and television workers. The same are weak laborers, and organizations such as the actors union and the directors' union have repeatedly reiterated their support for the strike of the screenwriters' union. and Maya Rudolph, the star of "Loot", although she is a comedian, she has also been a screenwriter herself; Coupled with her life partner of more than twenty years, Paul Thomas Anderson, who is also a famous director and screenwriter in Hollywood, as soon as I saw members of the screenwriters' union appear on the filming site of "Loot" and held up signs to protest, even if they expressed their support for their actions, they would not enter the filming scene again.
Compared with the previous strikes of the screenwriters' union, the atmosphere of common hatred shown by Hollywood film and television people during this strike is relatively stronger. Originally, the management felt that as long as enough scripts were prepared in advance, even if the screenwriters went on strike, they would not delay normal shooting, but now it seems that because of the sympathy and support of some actors, directors and even logistics departments, there are more and more film and television crews that have been forced to stop.
The Writers' Guild strike 15 years ago lasted 100 days and ultimately cost $2.1 billion to the overall economy. Including currency depreciation, this is equivalent to about $2.8 billion today. This time, if there were a strike by both unions after July 12, the economic damage would certainly exceed $2.8 billion. The most direct loss comes from the film and television crews, once the filming is interrupted, the accommodation, meals, transportation, logistics and other expenses that maintain the daily operation of the crew cannot be stopped, and every day the strike lasts, the crew who are forced to stop work are burning money in vain.
Secondly, the chain effect of the shutdown of the crew is that a large number of unemployed people will suddenly emerge in other related positions, and in Hollywood, a film and television city, once the income of film and television personnel is not guaranteed, it will inevitably affect the entire small city in the catering, retail, real estate and other industries.