CELEBRITY
George Clooney, Other A-List Actors Offer To Pay More SAG-AFTRA Union Dues To Bring Strike To An End
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A group of A-List actors including George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Tyler Perry, Scarlett Johansson, and Emma Stone have offered to pay higher union dues in a bid to bring the Hollywood actors’ strike to an end, according to Deadline.
Negotiations between striking actors and Hollywood studios broke down last week, with SAG-AFTRA decrying the bully tactics and misrepresentations from the companies.
In a meeting with SAG-AFTRA leaders including Fran Drescher and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the Hollywood high-earners suggested removing the $1 million cap on membership dues, and using the money to shore up member healthcare and other needs, Deadline reported.
A lot of the top earners want to be part of the solution, Clooney told Deadline.
Weve offered to remove the cap on dues, which would bring over $50 million to the union annually. Well over $150 million over the next three years. We think its fair for us to pay more into the union, Clooney said.
The two-time Oscar winner said the actors also suggested a bottom-up system for residuals, which would see the lowest-paid actors paid first.
We also are suggesting a bottom-up residual structure — meaning the top of the call sheet would be the last to collect residuals, not the first, Clooney said. These negotiations will be ongoing, but we wanted to show that were all in this together and find ways to help close the gap on actors getting paid.”
Some 160,000 actors represented by SAG-AFTRA remain on strike, which began on July 14, after they joined the Writers Guild of America for the first Hollywood double strike since 1960.
SAG-AFTRA and the WGA each voted to strike after their respective contract negotiations broke down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents studios including Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony.
The WGA ended its five-month strike late last month, and officially ratified the new contract on Monday, having won historic wage increases, viewership-based pay for streaming content, and regulations on the use of artificial intelligence in the writing process.
The AMPTP said in a statement last week that after five days of bargaining, the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction.
The key points of contention appear to be a share of streaming revenue for the actors, along with protections against the use of artificial intelligence.
The AMPTP said the union’s proposed viewership bonus for streaming would amount to $800 million per year, which would create an untenable economic burden.
SAG-AFTRA said that figure was intentionally overstated by 60%, and that their proposal would cost the companies less than 57 cents per subscriber each year.
They have done the same with A.I., claiming to protect performer consent, but continuing to demand ‘consent’ on the first day of employment for use of a performers digital replica for an entire cinematic universe (or any franchise project), the union said.
TMX contributed to this article.
