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Three months after the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike in May, the Screen Actors Guild joined the fray on the picket lines. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced their own strike today with a speech by guild president Fran Drescher (The Nanny). Drescher pulled no punches in the address, calling the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) a “greedy entity” right out of the gate.
SAG-AFTRA Strike: How Did We Get Here?
Though the SAG-AFTRA strike was just announced today, it’s impossible to say that it came out of nowhere. Rumors and speculation about an actors’ strike have been floating around since the beginning of the WGA strike in early May, with many actors publicly sharing their support for the first strike. However, with the WGA and the SAG-AFTRA now officially both on strike, this marks the first time actors and writers have been on strike since 1960. During this year, future U.S. President Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild.
In a speech announcing the onset of the strike, current SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher – best known for her long-standing role in The Nanny (1993) – began by stating that the guild had worked hard to avoid a strike in the first place.
“The gravity of this move is not lost on me, or our negotiating committee, or our board members,” Drescher stated. “It’s a very serious thing that impacts thousands, if not millions, of people all across this country and around the world — not only members of this union, but people who work in other industries.”
As she continued, Drescher expressed that it was “with great sadness” that the Screen Actors Guild announced the beginning of the strike, explaining that they “had no choice.” In a press release published just before the announcement of the strike, Drescher stated that SAG-AFTRA had “negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry.”
“We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher announced in her speech today. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them.”
Why Is SAG-AFTRA Going On Strike?
At several points throughout her speech, Drescher outlined how “the business model is changing” in Hollywood due to streaming and the rising popularity of AI. Many of the points she outlined are the same ones put forth by the Writers’ Guild, which faces the threat of being rendered obsolete by AI-generated screenplays. For their part, actors and other SAG-AFTRA members face the same decreased residuals as the writers because of the new business model used by big-name production studios.
“You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change too,” Drescher stated. “We’re not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us.”
Regarding the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, who are opposing both the SAG-AFTRA and the WGA, Drescher gave the following statement:
“They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment. We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity,” she said, referring to the still-ongoing writers’ strike. “Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us, as well as other labor unions. Because at some point, the jig is up…the jig is up AMPTP. We stand tall. You have to wake up and smell the coffee. We are labor and we stand tall and we demand respect and to be honored for our contribution. You share the wealth because you cannot exist without us.”
More updates on the strike will likely become available as negotiations continue.
