Actors’ union joins the writers union to strike for better pay and residuals

On the heels of the Writers Guild of America strike, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has voted to strike, a move approved nearly unanimously by tens of thousands of actors.

The action comes after the Screen Actors Guild and The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to come to an agreement with studios on film and TV contracts. Like writers, actors have been at odds with the studios, asking repeatedly for their contracts to deliver better pay and residuals and to reflect changes brought by the modern era of streaming. 

It is the first time in decades that writers and actors have been on strike at the same time and means film and television productions will essentially shut down until an agreement is reached. It will have a major impact on Georgia’s booming film and TV industry. The writers have already been on strike for two months with no apparent progress toward an agreement.

Bethany Anne Lind, an Atlanta-based film, TV and stage actor, posted her thoughts about the strike on her Instagram profile.

“The problem with thinking you can starve people into working for you in an industry where you’ve starved us while working for you is that we have always had backup plans lined up,” she wrote.

Fran Drescher, the TV actor who leads the SAG-AFTRA union, said at a press conference that studios are pleading poverty when their CEOs make tens of millions of dollars in salary. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us!” Drescher said. “It is disgusting. Shame on them!”

“The AMPTP has remained steadfast in devaluing the work of our members,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, said in a statement. “A strike is an instrument of last resort. They have left us with no alternative.”