1,000 signatures reached
To: Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
Solidarity with Entertainment Workers
Workers at SAG-AFTRA – a union representing more than 160,000 entertainment professionals — are on strike. The strike coincides with the writers strike led by the Writers Guild of America. This marks the first time since 1960 that Hollywood actors, voice artists, other entertainment workers and writers have gone on strike simultaneously.
This historical and critical moment in the labor movement isn’t just about whether or not our favorite TV shows and movies will be made – it’s about the dignity of working artists. Entertainment workers are being paid what they deserve and are fighting back!
Sign now to show your support for entertainment workers!
Why is this important?
Working in Hollywood may seem like a glamorous life with fancy movie premiers, big fame and even bigger paychecks. But for many in the industry this is far from reality. The majority of working actors, voice actors and others on your favorite movies and shows are getting paid so little to perform that they struggle to pay for basic necessities.
Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ dominate the entertainment industry and these new business models push out actors who just want to make a living. With “traditional” entertainment media like cable, actors would continue to receive significant payout from shows and movies they’ve been in that play as reruns – these are known in the industry as “residuals.”
But with the advent of streaming services, residual pay has dwindled so much that even actors on some of the most internationally acclaimed shows are unable to live a normal life. An actor from Netflix’s Emmy-Award winning show Orange is the New Black shared on social media that she earned only $27.00 in residuals from the show.
Streaming has also meant shorter seasons of television shows, and longer breaks in between seasons making it difficult for actors and entertainers to have steady income. At any given time, unemployment among professional entertainers is around 90%.
Just like striking writers, actors are fighting back against new technologies like AI that threaten to manipulate their image, including giving studios access to their “digital likeness” that could be used without their consent – and without compensation – forever.
With the writers and actors on strike for the first time in decades, this is a flash point for the entertainment industry. As fans and workers ourselves, it’s important we stand up for the artists whose work we love. Sign the petition to stand in solidarity with the SAG-AFTRA union members and demand that production companies come to a fair agreement.
Sources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10213-0
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/kimiko-glenn-pay
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/13/23794224/sag-aftra-actors-strike-ai-image-rights
