We recently spoke to stuntwoman-actress Michelle Shock about the SAG-AFTRA contract and the general situation in the film and television industry.
When only a little more than a third of the membership bothers to vote in such circumstances, this has to be considered a vote of non-confidence in the union leadership.
The Drescher-Crabtree-Ireland leadership and the national board as a whole have proven themselves to be conscious agents of the corporate predators.
Opposition continues to mount among rank and file actors and entertainment workers after details of the tentative agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) were released last Friday.
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Studio and network executives are outraged by the writers’ audacity in challenging their right to absolute control over the future of film, television and other media, including virtually all the wealth it produces.
To defeat the attack on writers requires the full mobilization of the workforce in the entertainment industry, all of whom, in one way or another, will face this type of assault on their conditions of life.
Last Friday’s walkout by the television and movie producers from negotiations with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) begins to reveal the profound social, political and cultural issues contained in the strike by film and television writers, now in its sixth week.
The writers and their supporters face massive transnational conglomerates who also own the media and have intimate connections to both major political parties.
