SAG-AFTRA Ready to Strike Until 2024, Says Fran Drescher

Day 1 of the actors strike brought wrath and enthusiasm to the pickets

DAY ONE SAG-AFTRA pres Fran Drescher, chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and the union’s negotiating committee field questions form the press outside the Warner Bros. lot on July 14. (credit: Elaine Low)

Like groupies clamoring for their favorite band, actors and writers and press swarmed the giant white tour bus carrying SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and the rest of the union’s negotiating committee as they arrived outside the Warner Bros. lot around noon today.

It’s Day 1 of the performers strike, and boy, do actors know how to bring energy into a room. (At one picket alone, I heard at least half a dozen writers murmur about how the performers have really ramped up the vibe on the pickets.) After announcing a work stoppage and declaring at a dramatic presser yesterday that Hollywood talent are being “victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher and the gang went on a tour of the major studios, from Netflix to Disney — where the writers already have been on strike for 74 days and counting — and had some choice words for Hollywood’s suits.

“[Disney CEO] Bob Iger hasn’t been at this negotiating table for one minute,” said Crabtree-Ireland, and said he thinks Hollywood’s CEOs should “step up and participate in those negotiations and take responsibility for the results.” (My understanding, however, is that CEOs are not typically present at the negotiating table, and that they’re typically represented by the studios’ legal teams.)

Notably, when asked by a fellow reporter just how long the actors might go on strike, Drescher said, “We’re set up to go for six months if we have to.” The negotiating committee and crowd surrounding the group then broke out into a chant of “The jig is up! The jig is up!”

Whether that was an off-the-cuff comment or a calculated determination is unclear, but if one or both work stoppages really continue for another half year, that takes us clear into 2024. Woof.

Nudging my way to the front of the scrum, I asked Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland if federal mediators, who had been brought on in the 11th hour this week, would continue to be part of any continued negotiations between the union and the AMPTP (i.e. the group repping the studios that opted to bring in the mediators in the first place). Crabtree-Ireland claimed that the AMPTP “didn’t even let the mediators sit in their room like our committee did,” and alleged that it was a “cynical ploy.” (The AMPTP did not immediately respond to request for comment.)

I also asked about discussions around streaming transparency in the negotiating room. Here’s what they say went down.

An already months-long writers strike compounded by a (potentially six-months-long?) performers strike would surely seem like incentive to bring the studios back to the negotiating table. As the New York Times notes, the 2007-08 WGA strike had an estimated $2.1 billion impact to the local economy, and the overall impact of a double strike is likely to ripple even further out.

But the point of a work stoppage is disruption. And Hollywood’s 160,000 actors and 11,500 writers have made clear that they’re willing to withhold work from the studios in a bid to secure a better deal. Now we’re going to see who blinks first.

Actors, writers: I want to hear from you. Tell me why you’re taking to the pickets. Tell me how the streaming economy has impacted your career, and what you want when everyone heads back to the negotiating table.

Studio staffers: I want to hear from you too. How are the strikes impacting your work? Are you concerned about furloughs, layoffs? Do you support the actors and writers’ cause?

I want to hear it all. (And let me know if it’s okay to share your thoughts, either anonymously or on the record, with our readers.) Talk to me: elaine@theankler.com.

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Today in Strike News

• Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has issued a statement expressing her commitment to bringing the double strike to an end. “With more than one hundred thousand workers now participating in an unprecedented strike, it is clear the entertainment industry is at a historic inflection point,” she said. (Deadline).

• The WGA strike already put a large dent in production, but the SAG-AFTRA work stoppage is bringing it to a standstill, with tentpole films such as Deadpool 3 and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel shutting down on Friday. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Ireland’s Galway Film Fleadh was the first film festival to have an event pulled due to the SAG-AFTRA strike when actors Matthew Modine and Fiona Glascott canceled a scheduled Q&A for their film, The Martini Shot, on Friday. (Irish Central)

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Picket Sign of the Day

Seen on the picket line outside Netflix in Los Angeles today.

(Courtesy @BlackMajikMan90/Twitter)