Hollywood
has come to a standstill this summer as actors
join their writer colleagues on the picket line.
The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of
Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced that
it would be on strike starting July 14, 2023,
over negotiations breaking down with the
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television
Producers (AMPTP), which represents most of the
major studios in the film and television
industry. That same body failed to negotiate in
good faith with the Writers Guild of America
(WGA), which has been on strike since
May 2, 2023. Together, writers and actors
represent the majority of creative talent in the
most influential film industry in the world.
Even
before the SAG-AFTRA strike, labor activity had
been surging across the board. Axios tallied
the number of striking workers from January to
May every year since 2021 and found that by the
end of May 2023, there were 119,000 striking
workers in the United States—far more than the
number on strike during the same period in the
previous two years.
Since
May, the number of striking workers has surged
even higher as 15,000
hotel workers employed
by about 60 hotels in Los Angeles went on
strike. This was quickly followed by
SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000
actors launching
their strike, and coming on their heels was the
announcement that 340,000
UPS workers could
be going on a nationwide strike in August in
what would be “the largest strike against a
single employer in U.S. history.”
Hollywood’s
rank and file joins a phenomenon that has been
dubbed #HotLaborSummer,
a moment when workers in industries across the
nation are making themselves heard about poor
working conditions and low pay. Already,
production on television shows has halted with
the writers’ strike. Viewers anticipating the
return of their favorite TV shows in September
will likely be waiting
a while.
As highly anticipated summer
movies like
“Barbie” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” hit
theaters, actors will
not attend press
junkets, San
Diego Comic Con,
or any other publicity-related events to promote
their projects. The Emmy
Awards Show will
either be empty of actors and writers or have to
be postponed altogether.
In
spite of the power they wield in numbers, actors
and writers are facing off against moneyed
interests that are so flush with cash and other
projects that they can afford to wait out the
workers. A shocking report in Deadline on
how AMPTP plans to drag its feet on negotiating
with writers suggests that the same could be in
store for actors: “The endgame is to allow
things to drag on until union members start
losing their apartments and losing their
houses,” a studio executive told Deadline.
Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several
other sources reiterated the statement. One
insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”
If the strike were an on-screen plot, AMPTP
executives would be the undisputed villains.
Unlike
a potential UPS strike, which could economically
devastate the company within days and cost the
entire U.S. economy more
than $7 billion over 10 days,
Hollywood studios feel they can dig in their
heels. According to the Deadline report,
“as network schedules shift to unscripted shows
and streamers buy up foreign content, the
studios and streamers have been saving money on
shuttered productions and cost-cutting.”
Filmmaker
Boots Riley, whose new “anti-capitalist” streaming series “I’m
a Virgo” has garnered serious
accolades, called it
a “union-busting tactic” on Twitter and added,
“they want 2break [sic] us.” He told the
Hollywood Reporter that the studios are “trying
to put forward… a message that you’re not going
to be able to have a say in how we do things.”
Indeed,
that’s precisely what the
Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger seemed
to be saying when he claimed that the actors on
strike “have to be realistic about the business
environment and what this business can deliver.”
Iger and his fellow entertainment industry
executives appear to be claiming that it’s
simply impossible for companies like Disney to
continue to remain viable and pay its writers
and actors what they want.
But,
consider the shocking disparity in pay between
rank-and-file workers and their bosses.
Actor Kendrick
Sampson,
who is known for his work on “The Vampire
Diaries” and “Insecure,” and who is a common
fixture at Black
Lives Matter protests in
Los Angeles, illustrated on his Instagram page
just how poorly he is compensated in residuals,
or royalty payments—a major point of contention
in negotiations with AMPTP. From the 50 residual
checks he opened, he counted a grand total of
only $86 in residual payments. “This is why we
strike,” explained Sampson.
Meanwhile,
Disney CEO Iger recently spent $7
million in renovations alone on
his lavish $33 million Los Angeles mansion.
Forbes reported in 2019 that he was worth
about $690
million—a figure so unimaginably large
that he could afford to work for free and
would never want for anything. In spite of
this, he siphons off $27
million a year in
compensation to run Disney.
What’s
most potentially powerful about the actors’
strike is the narrative force it wields across
the country and the world. Movies and television
shows influence our thinking on so many social
issues. In our celebrity-obsessed culture,
actors are loved and lauded. Now, they’re under
attack from greedy millionaires and
billionaires.
“Abbott Elementary” star Sheryl
Lee Ralph,
a veteran, award-winning actor, explained it in
plain terms: “We’re fighting for our art… We’re
fighting for what we love, and what we know
people love. We’re not big million-dollar
companies. No, we’re people, and we want to
enjoy what we do, and we want to make a living
at it. That’s what this is about.”
The
actors’ decision to strike could spark interest
in labor issues and in the oppositional dynamic
between bosses and workers that Ralph
articulated. If our favorite movie stars are on
a picket line demanding better pay and fairer
working conditions just so they can survive
doing what they love to do, it could have a
ripple effect, inspiring others to make similar
demands of their own employers.
In
contrast to Ralph, AMPTP sounds heartless,
responding to the SAG-AFTRA strike in a statement,
saying, “The Union has regrettably chosen a path
that will lead to financial hardship for
countless thousands of people who depend on the
industry.” There was no mention of the financial
hardship that AMPTP has put union members
through, as industry executives deflect blame on
everyone but themselves, casting beloved actors
as the villains. Iger lamented that
striking actors “are adding to a set of
challenges that this business is already facing,
that is quite frankly, very disruptive.” But
disruption is precisely the point. If it were
convenient, a worker strike would affect
nothing.
This
commentary
was
produced by Economy
for All,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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