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SAG-AFTRA’s top negotiator said on Thursday the union would consider a proposal to end the strike from A-listers led by George Clooney in the same way it would review suggestions by any other members.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s national executive director and chief negotiator, sounded a phlegmatic tone when he told Screen on Thursday that the proposal was one of many from members to have come the union’s way during the 98-day work stoppage.
On Thursday morning it emerged Clooney and others including Tyler Perry and Emma Stone had proposed removing the cap on membership dues to bring in more than $50m a year and $150m over three years to the union, as well as a revised residuals formula designed to pay the lowest-earning members first.
“We’re always talking to our members,” said Crabtree-Ireland. ”If we were any other union no-one would even know that there were various members giving suggestions, ideas, support, feedback. But because our union happens to include some extremely famous people in its membership, that attracts all of this attention.
“It’s totally normal for members to share suggestions with us. Lots of other members have shared suggestions with us during the course of the entire negotiation process. I take it as what it is, which is ideas coming for our members that are then considered by our leadership and either put into play or not.”
It is understood that while removing membership caps could in theory free up money for member benefits, only employers are allowed to raise the level of benefits through contributions.
Speaking to Screen outside the Warner Bros lot in Burbank where he was attending a strike captains appreciation day, the SAG-AFTRA negotiator also weighed in on comments by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos yesterday intimating that the union’s proposal of a per-subscriber levy led to last week’s breakdown in talks.
“First of all it’s not a levy,” said Crabtree-Ireland. “Compensating workers for their work is not a tax, it’s not a levy; it’s what responsible employers do. And so when we negotiate for fair compensation for our members nothing about that is a levy.”
He added prior to Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) negotiators leaving the last round of talks the union had responded to feedback on the third iteration of its revenue-share proposal relating to streaming viewership after cutting its proposal from 2% of revenue to 1%.
The union said its last proposal would cost the Hollywood companies less than 57 cents per subscriber. The companies rejected that and said it would cost them more than $800m a year – a number SAG-AFTRA said was inflated.
“To me it is not something that should have triggered a walkout,” said Crabtree-Ireland of the union’s last proposal. “That was the problem with what they did for the first 80 days of our strike and it’s now apparently a continuing problem. I really am hoping and expecting that we’ll get back to the table soon.”
Separately, it has emerged that SAG-AFTRA has encouraged members wearing Halloween costumes during the upcoming festivities to choose generic characters and not those from films or TV shows by struck companies.
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– Armessa Movie News