The Screen Actors Guild, SAG-AFTRA, went on strike yesterday, joining the WGA on the picket lines. The writers have been striking for more than two months now, fighting the AMPTP for fair wages, better working conditions, and a solid roadmap for workers through the future of AI technology. The last time these two unions, who together represent the creative backbone of the entertainment industry in the United States, went on strike together was in 1960. Eisenhower was in the White House and Ronald Reagan was the president of SAG. He led the push for a strike and in the end built an entirely new way of doing business in Hollywood, creating the residuals system that has sustained working actors for the more than half century since.
Say what you will about Reagan (that his presidency is responsible for most of the messes we find our nation in now, and that he ironically became the biggest union-buster in U.S. history), as the president of SAG he was a badass.
And say what you will about Fran Drescher, the current SAG president, yesterday as she called the union to strike, she gave a hell of a speech and set the stage for a similar reordering of the entire Hollywood system. In fact, the entire Labor system in the United States. Because what she says here is correct: we need a new Labor Movement. Let it begin now.
