The ongoing WGA strike—in its third month of motion as of writing—and final week’s announcement that SAG-AFTRA, the wide-ranging actors union, can be becoming a member of it on strike, have created a labor reckoning in Hollywood not seen for over half a century. However that unprecedented second has made for an equally unprecedented second of confusion for folks who function in and round leisure media.
As SAG-AFTRA’s strike formally started this previous Friday, July 14, many questions remained about how members and non-members may help the motion with out going in opposition to the needs of the union. However social media spent the weekend rife with confusion and misinformation, as folks sought layers upon layers of clarification about how the strike impacted everybody from journalists working inside the leisure media panorama, to unbiased content material creators and influencers, all the best way right down to members of the general public who’re merely simply followers of the content material being made by placing employees—previous, current, and future. Discussions about reviewing or reacting to new and upcoming movie and TV initiatives, to issues as easy as cosplay or simply speaking about media in any respect on-line, as being equal to crossing a picket line got here up for debate. So what can and might’t be carried out throughout both SAG-AFTRA or the WGA’s strike? Right here’s a short primer.
What’s the Distinction Between Crossing a Picket Line and Scabbing?
Though the latter—the act of strikebreaking, colloquially and derogatorily referred to as “scabbing”—requires the previous, not everybody compelled to cross a picket line is breaking a strike. The truth is, many individuals within the leisure business, from administrators to producers to legions of help and technical employees who’re unaffiliated with the placing unions, must cross picket traces to be able to preserve doing their very own jobs. They, not like WGA and SAG affiliated employees, should not on strike, however nonetheless need to work at studios which are being picketed, even when they themselves personally help the strike motion.
Being a “scab” particularly normally means you might be both a member of a placing union who continues to work anyway, otherwise you’re a non-union member who’s employed by one of many picketed corporations to do work that might substitute a placing employee. Being a scab is shitty conduct! Don’t do it! Not simply because folks will assume you’re shitty—rightfully so, since you are doing a shitty factor—however when you ever wished to affix one of many placing unions in some unspecified time in the future in your profession (and when you’re doing paid work in these industries that might necessitate scabbing within the first place, there’s a extremely good probability you’d need to be), strikebreaking is the quickest manner to make sure you’ll be barred from searching for membership with an affected union.
However the dialog round scabbing and crossing pickets has turn into extra complicated within the mixed WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, particularly because the leisure business has seen the moral murkiness of entry journalism, influencers, and the rise of company fandom, a blurring of traces that has helped energy the studios these employees are placing in opposition to to even higher heights—heights they’ve used to stress their workers to work within the untenable conditions which have result in these strike actions within the first place. So proper now, what can journalists, influencers, and followers really do?
What Can Journalists Do Through the Strikes?
For journalists, that is easy: their jobs. Whereas some stage of relationship with the affected studios within the SAG and WGA strikes is seen as a essential side of that job in a company media atmosphere—entry to pre-release evaluate screeners or screenings, relationships with public relations groups for remark requests or interview entry with expertise and executives, and so forth—journalists are not a part of the studio equipment. They’re not employed by them, they don’t seem to be paid by them, their position is actually to not act as an extension of their advertising plans.
Journalists are critics and reporters: they evaluate and look at the work made by these studios independently of them, they report the information and inform their audiences. Are there folks on the market who ethically complicate these relationships for their very own acquire? Completely. Is that an excuse to name each journalist a shill, or within the case of a labor motion like the present strikes, a scab? No. Don’t do it, it’s dumb, and undermines solidarity between employees who come from industries which have a lengthy historical past of unionized labor, particularly on this present second the place studios would positively like to enact extra affect and management over each work forces.
The truth is, you would possibly know that a number of media unions, particularly for digital newsrooms, are literally already affiliated with the WGA particularly. GMG Union for instance, the union representing the G/O media community of internet sites Gizmodo is a part of—in addition to the Onion Inc Union, a separate union representing the staff at that web site—is unionized with the Author’s Guild of America, East, as are unions affiliated with media corporations reminiscent of Vox, Hearst, and extra. The explanation they’ve not been on strike because the WGA strike started on Might 2 this 12 months is that it’s not their contracts which are being negotiated—it’s particularly the contract between the WGA and the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers, or AMPTP, that’s affected. Within the case of the SAG-AFTRA strike, this additionally applies, together with broadcast journalists (i.e., reporters and anchors who seem on tv) who’re members of the union. Their contracts are separate from the TV and Theatrical contract being negotiated with the AMPTP, to allow them to proceed to work.
That doesn’t cease them from displaying solidarity with both strike although, both as non-public people or as journalists seeking to spotlight the unions’ struggles to their audiences. Affected actors or screenwriters can’t discuss to you to advertise struck work as that might go in opposition to their union’s strike agreements. However they will, and could possibly be prepared to, focus on the affect of the strike with you in an interview.
What Can Influencers Do Through the Strikes?
Influencers—individuals who leverage an viewers via social media and different channels to barter and execute model offers and different advertising plans—really do have separate guidelines to observe through the ongoing strikes, particularly if these influencers are already members of SAG-AFTRA or the WGA. SAG has already launched tips for influencer members, as outlined on its web site and who’ve already signed particular agreements and waivers for influencer work with the union—about what sorts of labor they will nonetheless carry out whereas the union is on strike. This consists of already contractually obligated work, even when that work is with a struck firm.
What influencers who’ve signed agreements and waivers with SAG-AFTRA can’t do largely aligns with different members of the union: they will’t pursue new offers with struck corporations, they usually can not carry out promotional work for these corporations at occasions like premieres or San Diego Comedian-Con, they usually can’t focus on content material from struck corporations on social media, whether or not it’s paid or unpaid. This additionally applies to unbiased influencers who intend on searching for membership with SAG sooner or later: “Any non-member searching for future membership in SAG-AFTRA who performs coated work or providers for a struck firm through the strike is not going to be admitted into membership in SAG-AFTRA,” SAG-AFTRA’s web site states.
What Can Followers Do Through the Strikes?
We reside in an age of fandom—from individuals who simply love Marvel films to followers who’ve made unbiased careers out of podcasting or content material creation, fansites, and fanfic, there are folks all around the world who now abruptly discover the sequence they love or the flicks they’re wanting ahead to impacted by these strikes. Even when you’ve made a profession out it, you’re not obligated to observe any of the particularly talked about above tips until you propose to ultimately be a part of one of many impacted unions.
Speak about that new episode of Secret Invasion, do a podcast about Ahsoka, cosplay at SDCC (of your personal private volition—when you’ve made a profession out of being a cosplay influencer that has labored with studios or different corporations earlier than, it’s seemingly higher to not pursue that promotional work through the strike, whether or not you’re unionized or not, for the explanations laid out above), no matter you need. Or don’t when you really feel uncomfortable about it—the purpose is you aren’t obligated to observe strike tips. Neither the WGA nor SAG-AFTRA have known as for client boycotts of media from the struck corporations, which implies…
Can I Nonetheless Watch New Films or Present TV Exhibits?
Sure, you’ll be able to go do your Barbenheimer double function or binge your manner via The Witcher season 3. Like I stated above, neither the WGA nor SAG-AFTRA have at the moment known as for a client boycott of fabric from the AMPTP. The truth is, members of each unions have explicitly famous that that is at the moment unlikely to occur, and particular person folks shouldn’t contemplate doing boycotts as a manner of solidarity anyway—dips in viewers response and engagement could possibly be seen as leverage by the studios to make use of in opposition to the unions, whereas demand for the fruits of their labor can present help.
However What If I Need to Be part of SAG or the WGA Some Day?
You may nonetheless do all of the above as a client—Barbenheimer away. The one factor that issues when you’re pursuing a profession within the fields coated by SAG-AFTRA and the WGA is that you just don’t carry out work for any of the struck corporations in any capability, or promote that work in paid and unpaid capacities within the case of influencers. Doing so will see you blacklisted from becoming a member of sooner or later.
What Can I Do to Assist Through the Strikes?
Each the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have requested audiences who need to assist to take action each digitally and bodily. Folks enthusiastic about becoming a member of a neighborhood picket line or in donating meals and water to strike contributors can verify each the WGA and SAG-AFTRA picket schedules for native occasion timings, and work with strike captains on web site to see how they will finest lend help in particular person.
Past that, you’ll be able to donate to fundraisers just like the Leisure Neighborhood Fund for each WGA and SAG-AFTRA, and each unions have publicly accessible social media toolkits stuffed with graphics, pattern posts, and hashtags to construct help round throughout websites like Twitter, Fb, TikTok, and Instagram—or share messages from every union’s personal social platforms together with your audiences. For unbiased content material creators, influencers, and members of the media, the Freelance Solidarity Undertaking gives some tips and calls to motion, together with a press release to connect to media created through the strikes to indicate help and acknowledge the shared labor struggles on this nigh-on unprecedented second in Hollywood.
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