Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA announced Thursday that it is on strike against the film and TV companies, marking only the second time in Hollywood history that actors have joined writers on the picket lines.
The SAG-AFTRA national board held its meeting on Thursday morning and voted unanimously to approve a strike recommendation forwarded by the negotiating committee, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA, said during a press conference. “Union members should withhold their labor until a fair contract can be achieved,” he told the room. “They have left us with no alternative.” The strike starts at midnight on Thursday and the union members will join WGA on the picket lines beginning on Friday morning. “We are being victimized by a very greedy enterprise,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said during Thursday’s press conference. “At some point you have to say ‘no, we’re not going to take this anymore.
You people are crazy. What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’” She continued, “The entire business model has been changed by streaming and A.I.
If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in jeopardy. You cannot change the business model as much as it has been changed and not expect the contract to change too.” The union’s contract expired at midnight Wednesday, after a month of negotiations resulted in little progress on a host of issues.
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