We recently spoke to stuntwoman-actress Michelle Shock about the SAG-AFTRA contract and the general situation in the film and television industry.
When only a little more than a third of the membership bothers to vote in such circumstances, this has to be considered a vote of non-confidence in the union leadership.
The Drescher-Crabtree-Ireland leadership and the national board as a whole have proven themselves to be conscious agents of the corporate predators.
Opposition continues to mount among rank and file actors and entertainment workers after details of the tentative agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) were released last Friday.
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Studio and network executives are outraged by the writers’ audacity in challenging their right to absolute control over the future of film, television and other media, including virtually all the wealth it produces.
To defeat the attack on writers requires the full mobilization of the workforce in the entertainment industry, all of whom, in one way or another, will face this type of assault on their conditions of life.
Last Friday’s walkout by the television and movie producers from negotiations with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) begins to reveal the profound social, political and cultural issues contained in the strike by film and television writers, now in its sixth week.
The writers and their supporters face massive transnational conglomerates who also own the media and have intimate connections to both major political parties.
The union is facilitating the destruction of a portion of its membership. This is the logical follow-up to the sellout contract agreed to by SAG-AFTRA after a lengthy strike last year.
We recently spoke to stuntwoman-actress Michelle Shock about the SAG-AFTRA contract and the general situation in the film and television industry.
When only a little more than a third of the membership bothers to vote in such circumstances, this has to be considered a vote of non-confidence in the union leadership.
The Drescher-Crabtree-Ireland leadership and the national board as a whole have proven themselves to be conscious agents of the corporate predators.
Opposition continues to mount among rank and file actors and entertainment workers after details of the tentative agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) were released last Friday.
Voting on the contract began prior to the union’s membership having a chance to examine its contents. SAG-AFTRA declared the strike “over” before the ratification process began. The agreement betrays actors’ interests all along the line and should be rejected.
The deal is a thorough-going fraud, which the union is now attempting to perpetrate on the 65,000 striking actors.
Actors have made sacrifices for months, losing work, income and possibly homes or apartments, so that union officials could sell them down the river in secret negotiations.
Actors will have to mobilize themselves to prevent this sellout, which is already being celebrated by the companies, the media and the Biden White House, all of them inveterate enemies of the working class.
The union announced an agreement Wednesday after two weeks of behind-closed-doors negotiations with the AMPTP. The talks have been going on, as the following interview makes clear, behind the backs of the SAG-AFTRA membership, who have been left entirely in the dark.
As SAG-AFTRA attempts to wrap up a corporate-friendly deal, militancy and determination of the rank and file continue to dominate the picket lines.
As in June, the powerful message from rank-and-file actors is clear: don’t sell us out!
SAG-AFTRA is hoping to wrap up a corporate-friendly sellout deal before the end of October, despite the militancy of the rank-and-file. A witch-hunt against pro-Palestinian views is under way in Hollywood.
Essentially, on the most critical questions the companies are offering nothing and the union feels that it is hard to sell this to a restive, angry membership, which is already mistrustful.
Nothing good for the actors will come out of these behind-closed-doors talks. Actors should immediately demand that they know the contents of these negotiations.
The WGA leadership does not speak for the writers, it speaks for a privileged upper-middle-class layer in the entertainment business with unbreakable ties to the companies and the Democratic Party.
The WGA has functioned as the agent of the corporations and the government in this strike in precisely the same fashion as the UAW, Teamsters and every other section of the union officialdom in their respective industries.
In a blatantly undemocratic action aimed at forcing through a sellout agreement, the Writers Guild ordered its members to return work before they had even been given a chance to review and vote on the three year contract.
The determination and solidarity of the writers and actors is undeniable, and inspiring. But that does not lead to the conclusion that the agreement is “exceptional,” with “meaningful gains and protections for writers.”
The behind-closed-doors talks represent a grave danger to the striking writers, who have made immense sacrifices over the course of more than 140 days.
