UPDATED with video: Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, blasted the AMPTP at a strike rally Tuesday in Times Square, saying that the companies’ response to the guild’s proposals before contract talks broke off and the actors’ strike began 12 days ago was “No. No. No.”
Speaking before hundreds of cheering actors and their supporters from other guilds and unions, Crabtree-Ireland noted that when he and SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher had talked to the CEOs of three of the studios on that last day of bargaining May 12, “We said: ‘Here’s all you have to do to make sure there’s no strike. All you have to do is make this fair deal.’
“And their response was, ‘No.’ Just like their response to so many of our proposals that we’ve said are essential for actors being treated in a respectful and fair way.
“Do actors get to have minimum wage increases that keep up with inflation? ‘No.’
“Do actors get to have a share of the streaming revenue that has been created because of their faces and their voices on these new platforms, these new businesses these companies are creating? ‘No. We don’t even want to talk about it.’
“Are they willing to give actors true informed consent about the use of their own face, voice, body, likeness in the creation of artificial intelligence digital doubles of them? ‘No.’”
“This strike,” he said, “is the result of big corporations that refuse to treat our members fairly. And it’s not okay, and we are standing up and we are saying ‘No’ to that…This is a united membership who are standing together and are saying ‘No’ to an unfair deal. Are saying ‘No’ to disrespect from these companies.”
Here’s the video:
The SAG-AFTRA rally, dubbed Rock the City for a Fair Contract, featured speeches from Bryan Cranston, Christie Baranski, Stephen Lang, Wendell Pierce, Christian Slater, Liza Colón Zayas and F. Murray Abraham among others who attended the event, which took over the Times Square Pedestrian Plaza on Broadway between 43rd and 44th streets. Speakers also included WGA East Executive Director Lowell Peterson, whose guild has been on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for 85 days.
Crabtree-Ireland, who has been crisscrossing the country in the past week and was in New York after attending Comic-Con last week in San Diego, added, “Before the AMPTP walked away from the bargaining table – and make no mistake, they walked away from the bargaining table – we may be on strike, but I said to them on July 12th that we are ready to continue talking tomorrow and every after until we reach a deal. And I’ve said that every day since, to the media, to them and to anyone who will listen. SAG-AFTRA is ready, willing and able to return to the bargaining table. The only reason we aren’t there right now is because those companies said that they didn’t want to deal with people who are ‘uncivilized.’ (Boos from the crowd.) And because those companies said that they wouldn’t be ready to talk for quite some time. (More boos and jeers.) That’s right. That’s exactly right. We reject that.
“We made a very reasonable proposal to share in the revenue from the streaming platform that’s been created because of you – all of you. And their response to that was ‘We’re not interested in discussing that.’ And now the AMPTP is trying to claim that their last contract offer to us is worth over $1 billion a year. Which is not true at all. But the fact is, none of their spin is going to trick anyone. It’s not going to fool you and it’s not going to fool anyone else out there.
“When they say that they would have agreed to our informed consent proposals on AI, well you know what? Great. I wish they would have. Because what? I was going to say ‘no’ to that if they agreed to it? No. Their idea of informed consent is you come in on the first day of work, or even before you get hired, and you have to agree in advance that you’re going to let them do whatever they want with your digital replica. That’s not real consent. That’s bogus. It’s not legitimate.
“By the way, we’ve talked a lot about how this effects background actors, and rightly so, because background actors would be abused under their proposal. But you know what? It’s not only background actors. They made the same proposal for franchise projects. So any principal performer out there who thought, ‘Oh, wow. I might have a chance to get on a Marvel movie.’ Well, you know what? That job could be your last because they can tell you that if you want that job, you have to agree to give your consent for them to use your digital replica forever with no additional consent and no additional compensation. And that is wrong.
“And until these companies come to the table and make a fair and respectful deal, we are going to continue to be on the strike lines, we are going to continue to say ‘No’ to an unfair abuse of their power in trying to coerce us into accepting something that’s wrong. There comes a time when you have to stand up for what’s right, and that time is now.”
The WGAE’s Peterson, noted that “the entire labor movement is united in this battle, and let’s fight together because together we will win this battle.” The WGA has been on strike since May 2.
And while noting that the spirit of the rally “is great and powerful,” Peterson stressed that “we’re not here having a party; we’re not here putting on a show. We’re here in an epic battle against some of the most powerful and wealthy corporations in the history of the planet. And people are making real sacrifices. You all are making real sacrifices.”
And then, almost as if on cue, people in the back of the crowd starting calling out for a medic – someone was having a medical emergency.
“Wow. I hope everyone’s alright,” Peterson said from the stage, pausing his remarks. “Can we get somebody out there? NYPD? We need a medic. Emergency intervention in the back.”
Medical aid was dispatched quickly, and before continuing, he noted: “It is hot. Please hydrate.”
“What is it that unites us?” he asked, continuing his remarks. “Do we all have the same contract provisions between all the unions? Absolutely not. Do we have identical goals? No. What it is that unites us is the fact that our members work for the same companies. And our members’ work is essential to those companies. The stupendous profits generated by the entertainment industry would simply disappear if there were not writers and no actors and no drivers and no crew.
“What we are fighting for is nothing less than the survival of our crafts. If the companies continue their refusal to provide sustainable middle-class careers – careers that enable people to focus on your art, your incredible and real skills, then the industry will collapse. We have to get rid of this tech-bro paradigm that the studios have brought to the bargaining table. (Cheers.) It’s really simple. People simply need to be paid enough to make a living. We can’t let our members’ careers be eroded just because the gigs are shorter and the gaps between gigs are longer, and the pay rates are going down and residuals are evaporating. And that will continue to happen if we don’t continue to fight.”
The companies’ strategy, he said, “was to break us, one union at a time. I think it’s fair to say that that strategy has failed. (Loud cheers.) We are all here today to prove that. And let me give this message to the CEOs and their hangers-on. Instead of threatening to force us out of our homes; instead of belittling our skills; instead of belittling our proposals and saying we’re not realistic, instead of saying ‘You’re all lucky to have a job,’ how about if you actually wake up and recognize that the model you created does not work. It does not work for writers; it doesn’t work for actors, and in the long run, it will not work for this industry. Because without us, there is no industry.
“So instead of rejecting all of our basic proposals, which have the simple goal of sustaining middle-class careers, come back to the table. Negotiate with us in good faith. We’re here, and we’re gonna stay here as long as it takes.”
Sean Piccoli contributed to this report
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