Summary SAG-AFTRA negotiator slams Hollywood studios for refusing talks, prolonging the strike and causing economic losses estimated at $5 billion.
Studios’ intransigence and manipulation tactics allegedly involve preventing progress in negotiations, leaving the end of the strike uncertain.
Despite the ongoing challenges, SAG-AFTRA remains committed and united in their fight for fair wages and protections, hoping for victory.
Key SAG-AFTRA negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland slams Hollywood studios for refusing talks. As Labor Day weekend comes to a close, the SAG-AFTRA strike has now been going on for 53 days. After nearly two months of striking, the union continues to fight for fair wages, residual payments, and protections as major Hollywood studios continuously push back.
In a guest column with Variety, SAG-AFTRA’s National Executive Director Crabtree-Ireland raged at the studios’ reaction to the strike. As recounted by Crabtree-Ireland, the union told studios on July 12 that they were “willing to continue to negotiate” but were met with resistance from studios. Studios claimed that they would need time before they could talk, but have still refused. While praising the continued “resilience, unity, and solidarity” against their opposition, the chief negotiator labeled Hollywood studios’ behavior a “deliberate effort the prolong the strike. Crabtree-Ireland elaborates on the injustice of the studios’ refusal to talk:
The AMPTP’s intransigence and silence is irrational. The only way a strike is resolved is through the parties talking. Their refusal to even talk with us seems like a deliberate effort to prolong the strike and inflict maximum pain. Some economists are estimating approximately $5 billion in economic losses as a result. Or, perhaps their endgame is, as one anonymous studio executive told a news outlet, to let the strike “drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”
What Hope Is There for the End of the SAG-AFTRA Strike?
Crabtree-Ireland’s guest column is a powerful call-out to both the resilience and dismay behind the actors strike. Even as SAG-AFTRA members remain strong and unified, they are faced with being starved out by studio executives. In the meantime, union guidelines prevent actors from acting and promoting their films without waivers.
Even in the face of this disruption, the studios’ have remained completely stubborn in strike negotiations as their inaction stagnates any progress. As was previously reported with the “anonymous studio executive” statement, the studios may be intentionally manipulating the actors until they cave. In opposition to this, however, Crabtree-Ireland maintains that SAG-AFTRA is “deeply committed and proud to continue fighting for actors, writers and workers across the country.”
This begs the question of when the SAG-AFTRA strike will end. With the studios’ abject refusal to budge or even attempt to negotiate with the union, the stalemate seems indefinite. In the meantime, news of paltry residual payments and mistreatment roars on, cementing the ongoing need for the strike. While an end is far from in sight, SAG-AFTRA strikers can hopefully find motivation from Crabtree-Ireland’s final statement: “Standing united, we will win.”
Source: Variety