SAG-AFTRA’s top negotiators have responded to a proposal to end the strike from A-list talent led by George Clooney.
On Thursday morning, it emerged Clooney and others including Tyler Perry and Emma Stone had proposed removing the cap on membership dues to bring in more than $50m a year and $150m over three years to the union, as well as a revised residuals formula designed to pay the lowest-earning members first.
In a statement, the SAG-AFTRA negotiating team praised the “generous concept” but added: “It is in no way related to and would have no bearing on this present contract or even as a subject of collective bargaining. It is, in fact, prohibited by Federal labour law. For example, our Pension and Health plans are funded exclusively from employer contributions. It also doesn’t speak to the scale of the overall package.”
“Having said that, their creativity and earnest desire to help solve the impasse are very much appreciated. It is worth noting that the union has a very robust process to include the concerns of every member.
“The fact that the heads of the networks, streaming companies and studios are open to communicating with them directly is great. But the executives should not for one second think that they can use the good will of member emissaries to distract us from our mission.”
Earlier in the day, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, also discussed the proposal. “It’s totally normal for members to share suggestions with us. Lots of other members have shared suggestions with us during the course of the entire negotiation process. I take it as what it is, which is ideas coming for our members that are then considered by our leadership and either put into play or not.”
Speaking to Screen outside the Warner Bros lot in Burbank where he was attending a strike captains appreciation day, the SAG-AFTRA negotiator also weighed in on comments by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos yesterday intimating that the union’s proposal of a per-subscriber levy led to last week’s breakdown in talks.
“First of all, it’s not a levy,” said Crabtree-Ireland. “Compensating workers for their work is not a tax, it’s not a levy; it’s what responsible employers do. And so when we negotiate for fair compensation for our members nothing about that is a levy.”
He added, prior to Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) negotiators leaving the last round of talks, the union had responded to feedback on the third iteration of its revenue-share proposal relating to streaming viewership after cutting its proposal from 2% of revenue to 1%.
The union said its last proposal would cost the Hollywood companies less than 57 cents per subscriber. The companies rejected that and said it would cost them more than $800m a year – a number SAG-AFTRA said was inflated.
“To me it is not something that should have triggered a walkout,” said Crabtree-Ireland of the union’s last proposal. “That was the problem with what they did for the first 80 days of our strike and it’s now apparently a continuing problem. I really am hoping and expecting that we’ll get back to the table soon.”
Separately, it has emerged that SAG-AFTRA has encouraged members wearing Halloween costumes during the upcoming festivities to choose generic characters and not those from films or TV shows by struck companies.
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