Leaders of Hollywood’s actors union voted Thursday to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades.
Leaders of a Hollywood’s actors union voted Thursday to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades, shutting down production across the entertainment industry after talks for a new contract with studios and streaming services broke down.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, executive director of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said at a news conference that the union leadership voted for the work stoppage hours after their contract expired and talks broke off with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers representing employers including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others.
“A strike is an instrument of last resort,” he said. Union leaders said at a news conference that they voted unanimously for a strike to begin at midnight. Outside Netflix’s Hollywood offices, picketing screenwriters chanted “Pay your actors!” immediately after the strike was announced.
It’s the first strike for actors from film and television shows since 1980. And it’s the first time two major Hollywood unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the actors’ guild president.
“Employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run,” former “The Nanny” star and SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in an impassioned speech that drew applause from union leaders in the room. “It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.”
With a stoppage looming, the premiere of Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” in London was moved up an hour so that the cast could walk the red carpet before the SAG board’s announcement.
