2023-07-13 10:44:59
First the page went blank. Now the camera will have no one to record. The red carpets will be desertedthere will be no ‘talent’ to support campaigns to promote films and series and the big festivals will lose the magnet of the best-known faces.
A double strike of writers and actors Hollywood, the first after the only joint preview of the two groups that took place 63 years ago, becomes a reality. And the American entertainment industry, today a radically transformed universe compared to 1960, fades to black.
The main union of actors of the United States, merged for 11 years with the American Federation of Artists of Radio and Television in the organization SAG-AFTRA, with 160,000 members, has confirmed this Thursday that a strike will begin on Friday in addition to the one that the writers have been running since May 2. And if that of the writers had already paralyzed 80% of the production, now the expectation is a total halta true earthquake not only for the audiovisual industry, but for the local economies in which it works.
the pitfalls
As happened with the scriptwriters, the interpreters have not reached an agreement in their negotiations with the big studios and platforms to renew their agreement, a complex dialogue where they demand job improvements, more health coverage benefits and pensions, income adjusted to a system that requires more transparency to be able to adjust the rights they charge for the sale and issuance of their works and, also, strict controls to regulate artificial intelligence technology and the impact on their works, which they consider “an existential threat”.
Although the dialogue of the actors with the Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP for its acronym in English) was born with more hopes of a pact, these were diluted little by little. Heavyweights among actors, such as Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Pedro Pascal o Ben Stiller, they signed a letter assuring that they would support the strike. “We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom and the power of our unions have been undermined in the last decade. We need to reverse those trajectories,” they wrote.
Although the period for negotiations was extended once the contract expired on June 30, extending its force until one minute before midnight on July 12, the differences have ended up proving irresolvable.
Crossing of accusations
After a few frantic last hours of negotiation on Wednesday, joined by two representatives of a federal government body specializing in mediation in labor disputes, SAG-AFTRA announced in a statement early Thursday morning that no agreement had been reached and that the bargaining committee had voted unanimously to recommend the strike to the union’s national board. That vote took place at noon in Los Angeles and determined the start of the strike at midnight.
“The strike is a last resort instrument, but they have given us no other alternative,” The executive director of the union and main negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, assured in a press conference this Thursday in Los Angeles that hours before in a statement he had assured that “studios and streamers have unilaterally implemented massive changes in the business model of our industry while insist on keeping our contracts frozen in amber”. “They have underestimated the determination of our members, as you are about to find out,” she said.
At the press conference he also angrily showed his indignation with the position of the studies Fran Drescherwho chairs the union. “I am shocked by the way people we work with are treating usI can’t believe it, frankly,” said the actress, who told the interpreters “victims of a very greedy entity”. “What happens here is important because what happens to us It is happening in all fields of work: Those who hire make Wall Street and greed their priority and forget about the essential contributors that make the machine work.”
The AMPTP, which represents studios and platforms such as Netflix, Disney, Sony, Amazon, Apple, Paramount, NBC Universal y Warner Bros Discoverhas assured for its part in a statement that they were “deeply disappointed that they have decided to abandon the negotiations” and has affirmed that the strike is “the choice of the union, not of the companies.”
In the text signed by spokesman Scott Rowe, the union was also attacked, accusing it of putting the industry “in a direction that will deepen the economic hardship of thousands whose livelihoods depend on the industry.” And a priest from studies like Bob Iger, who has been renewed as CEO of Disneyaccused the actors of making “unrealistic” claims.
The premiere of ‘Oppenheimer’, first affected
What will happen next is a big unknown. No one dares to venture how long the strike will last, if the industry will end up giving in to the double pressure of scriptwriters and actors that guarantees paralysis, or how long can the workers hold out, among which there are stars with million-dollar contracts but also others with a low profile and much more limited income.
At the moment, in any case, Drescher has assured that they are not going to change their position. “We are not going to continue making incremental changes to an agreement that no longer works for what is happening with the business model that has been imposed on us. What do we do? Move the furniture on the Titanic?”, he explained graphically.
The first effects of the strike were immediately visible, even before the strike formally began. Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, interpreters in the last work of Christopher Nolan, ‘Oppenheimer’, They attended the London premiere and walked the red carpet but left during the screening to, the director said, “make banners for the pickets, and join the fight for fair wages for union members.
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