The Delta Flyers - SAG-AFTRA Strike Special

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

In this special release, Garrett and Robbie are joined by Michelle Hurd, Kitty Swink, and Armin Shimerman to talk all things SAG-AFTRA strike. Michelle Hurd is the current SAG-AFTRA Vice President of Los Angeles, Chair of the Sexual Harassment Prevention Committee, and is a part of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee. Kitty Swink was a SAG-AFTRA Vice President of Los Angeles. And was the Chair of the residuals study in 2001. Kitty was also a trustee of the Pension and Health Trust committee.Armin Shimerman was the Chair of the 2001 SAG negotiating committee. Armin and Kitty both sat on the 2001 SAG negotiating committee, and many other SAG committees. If you'd like to donate to the union emergency fund, you can do so here: https://members.sagfoundation.org/donateYou can view the video version of this special on our Patreon page at the Commander tier:https://www.patreon.com/TheDeltaFlyersOur Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

welcome everyone i am very happy to say that we have some guests here we have a couple people who have been on sag after negotiating committees in the past and they've served and also we have someone who served as the past vice president of the los angeles division of screen actors guild and we have a current vice president of Los Angeles Screen Actors Guild, as well as a current negotiating committee member for Screen Actors Guild. So once again, starting with our ex-committee members, we're going to go with, we have Kitty Swink and Armin Sherman here. So thank you for joining us. And our current vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of Screen Actors Guild, Michelle Hurd. And Michelle Hurd also serves in, Michelle, just named the other things. You said all the different committees. Can you just

tell me and because there's so many different categories there might be new categories now i'm the national vice president of los angeles south because there is also a vice president of los angeles said so i don't want that person to get mad be like you took my title like i didn't take nobody's title um i'm the national vice president of los angeles south was i yes yes and and um i'm on the i'm also the chair of the sexual harassment prevention committee i'm there's quite a a bunch of committees i'm on i i don't even want to name them all it's just the things the working the working stuff that we do for our union um but i'm also part of the the negotiating committee um that has gotten us to this spot in time right now got you okay well we just want to take

this time to just start talking a little bit about exactly the ramifications of this strike especially when it comes to the actual attending of conventions because that's a lot of our that are watching this. So we would like to let people know that this is not the end of the world, because I think a lot of people are afraid that actors aren't even going to show up at all now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, thank you, Gare, for this opportunity. So I want to encourage our Trekkies, our fam, that we are doing everything we can to safeguard the cons, because as we all know, the cons don't have anything to do with the studios, with the A&PTP, the ones that we are, attending. I will say that if there is any con that has a studio affiliated with it that sponsors

it, our SAG after actors are not allowed to attend them. And there's a real reason for this. We, you know, the AMPTP is doing just fine financially. We do not need to help them out anymore. We don't need to throw any more eyes to their platforms. We don't need to put any more money in their pockets. They need to understand that we are important and without us, they actually will falter. Now, on that other side is that we, have no desire whatsoever to take away the gift that we all experience when we do these cons, which is to interact with the people who we care so much about, who have supported us for decades. And that is from our artistry, from the actors' work. The actors have been given the

gift. Like, you know, I say this to every person who comes up to me at the con. I am, and they tell me how much they love Rafi. I am so grateful that I've gotten the opportunity to bring Rafi to life. It's been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. So as an actor, I should be able to celebrate with you guys the work that we've done as artists. So what we want to do is amplify the artist. The A&P2P seems to think that they are the most important thing. We all know, we all know that the writers and the artists are the engines of the car. And without us, that car is not going to start. So we want to amplify our actors. We want to amplify the their work. So, you know, we're asking everybody to understand that we might, the cons might look

a little bit different. You might show up at the table and you won't see your sort of typical displays behind us of our shows and the lists of things we've done. Instead, we're actually going to introduce ourselves as ourselves. You will see me saying, I'm Michelle Hurd and I'm an actor and thank you so much for coming to spend some time with me. So this is something that we conscientiously carved out. You know, it's also something that I don't think the APTP realizes as well is that because of the systemic underpayment that we've all been subjected to for decades, these cons and through the generosity of our Treki families and our fans have sustained us. This is literally for some of us, the only income that we make. And there was no way that we were going to

allowed the AMPTP with all their egregious comments, take this away from us. So, you know, we understand how important this is to you guys. It's unbelievably important to us as well. So that was one of the major reasons that we wanted to make sure that we could continue to empower our actors and also embrace the time that we get to spend with our fans. Thank you. And just for clarification for Michelle, for those of our listeners and, and our viewers that are tuning in that do not know what the AMTPT stands for.

Can you please enlighten us, Michelle? Yes, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Production. Alliance A of Motion M, Production, and Television Production, and Television, Production, A, M-P-T-T-P. I messed up there, but it's in there. Producers, there you go, yes. It's basically a handful of multinational tech companies at this point. Am I right? Wall Street.

Wall Street. And this is, you're so, you know, Robert, you're really right because if you think about and this is why we are here where we are in 2023, you know, you think back to the days of studios, right? The big studios, Hollywood studios. And mind you, as the chair of the sexual harassment prevention committee, back in those days, there was issues too. There was a, you know, the catch.

Absolutely. The cat's the couch was a real thing. So, but in a weird way, those people loved. the artistry of creating movies and films. They loved actors. They, you know, they built actors up. They literally produced actors. And that was, by the way, back then, that was their only business.

They made movies. They made TV shows or movies. That was it. Now they make, you know. They were invested in it. Yes. Well, now they have satellite companies and telecommunication companies and sports teams and they have all kinds of things in video games.

So movies. Yeah. Even more than that, because now what we have, if we've all seen that like networks have been bought over by studios and then studios by each other and it's sort of this big kind of, you know, Pac-Man situation and there's only going to be one mega thing in the end, we have to realize that after the crash, financial crash, Wall Street was looking for places to put their money. Netflix was just starting out back then. That was 10, 15 years ago. And so a lot of Wall Street people started to shovel some money into Netflix because that was a lucrative thing that they could just make money. off of, cut to all these streaming platforms. Wall Street's like, cool, cool, cool, let's all invest. So we have to remember that when we're dealing with these things, we are

a part of a portfolio now, a portfolio of a board of directors who are making decisions when they feel like it. So if you're wondering like why sometimes there's a show that you really enjoy on a streaming platform, you see it once it's dropped and then you don't see it for a year or two or three or four. That's because that board of directors haven't decided whether they want to invest in that project anymore. So it's not about creatives.

There are no more creatives at the top of the chain who we can convey some sort of humanity, some sort of concept of empathy. This is literally about we are a part of a portfolio now of investment. And this is why it's so tricky because they're looking at spreadsheets, financial spreadsheets and they're thinking that in order to trim the fact they're going to trim writers and actors out of the out of their their contracts unacceptable yes sir

just to make everything clear and michelle is doing a great job i really applaud everything she's doing but just to be clear the union has many contracts with many different media things the only contract that's being struck is the television and film as well as in the subsections of that. So what that means is if you go to a convention and do you see a voice over actor whose voice you know, they're not on strike. In the field that we're in,

an actor can continue to do to games, can continue to do commercials, can continue to... Soap operas? Soap operas. All of that is okay because that contract is not being struck. It's only the film and the television contract and of the, so that's clear. I don't want anybody who says, why is that person working when the union's on strike?

It's because they can't. That contract is not under strike. And he's absolutely right. TV theatrical, what we're doing, TV theatrical. So basically something like doing voiceover for a game like Star Trek online is not part of the contract. Is that right? Not part of the contract. Okay.

Even though Star Trek is still part of the, you know. as long as it's under the different contract. It might be paramount or Star Trek. But if it's under the other contract, yes, yes, Gerrit, go ahead, have a good time, make money. Net code contracts are all good. And what Armand was saying, just so everybody knows, Sagafra is a union of 160,000 people, 160,000 people, which consists of singers, dancers, broadcasters, stunt chorale.

stunt workers, background artists. Pilots, stunt pilots as well. Background people, background people. That's under the stunt category. Yeah. Voice over artists for theatrical and TV. So there's 160,000 people. And just to show how egregious this is, normally we have somewhere between six and eight weeks to negotiate.

The Writers Guild got five weeks, and that's about 18,000 people, 18, 19,000. The GGA, they saw, you know, came to an agreement early. We were given three and a half weeks for 160,000 people. When I was first involved with the union, we had about 90, 89,000 members. This is back in the 80s. Okay, I'm really old.

And I admit it. Yes, I am. And I'm proud of it. And we had probably three times as many people across the negotiating table. And the first contract I sat on, We had a 12-week schedule. So it might have been 10, it might have been 12,

but it's about that. I'm old, but I'm not senile yet. That said, I think you can see the difference in the respect we were given as artists and what we were given now. Well, that's four times, 400% more time, you said. 12 weeks compared to three, that's crazy. For a lot less people. I have a question just to kind of try to share with people what the issues are.

And it sounds like it's very complex with that many members, with that many kinds of work. There's so many issues. But if you had to boil it down to kind of the most important issues that are the problem here, how would you describe that? What's at stake? Yeah. Well, the beautiful thing about our negotiations and this negotiating committee is that We have really strong, very smart representatives in our room of every single category.

And every single category has some very important topics. So everybody is being taken care of. We are fighting for everybody. So I need to say that straight away because it's not like if I mentioned some things here now, we, you know, this is what we're focusing and we didn't focus on other stuff. And my sister is an Alvinnelli dancer. So I was incredibly attuned to what they were doing for dancers, you know. I mean, how insidious is this, that dancers are paid less money for rehearsal than they are for the film day.

Whereas in rehearsals, they have to be, they're rehearsing for eight, ten hours, multiple days. That's the time when they get hurt. And yet they're going to pay them less money while they rehearse as the day that they shoot. They don't even have places for the dancers to warm up. And that was, that's like a no-brainer. And they wouldn't even, you know, commit to this. So just saying that we're, you know, everything is very important. What I would say that this contract is solidly rooted in is economics, straight up economics.

The things that I fight for, you know, viciously is the options and exclusivity. And that's that whole thing about me going away for five months to shoot a 10 episode, a series. The streaming platform holds that, decides when they want to drop it. They drop it. Then they wait one, two, three years, whether to tell me the show is picked up or I'm picked up. I am no longer able to curate my career in that time because I can't get another series regular. I have to get something that will fit in there, unacceptable. Residuals, streaming residuals.

Back in the day, if people don't understand, linear television, which was that 22, 26 episodes, things, that was 10 months of work, which was a cash cow, by the way, for all the advertising, for all AMPTV, it was a cash cow. There was no reason to break that mold, but they broke that mold. That was what we all, you know, all got used to. to in the summer, we could do plays, we could do maybe a theater, or we could just hang out with our families because we've been away for 10 months. Now we have this five-month thing, drop it for 10, drop them at one time, and then we have to wait. I mean, it's unacceptable. And the residuals that we used to get from streamers would sustain us when we weren't working. Literally, you could sustain yourself and pay your rent. The residuals from streamers almost immediately are double

digits, meaning like $10. And that's my work. I think if anybody wants to look up Snoop Dog, he posted something, which was very funny. He says, I don't understand the streaming business. You can show me a show that gets a billion views, but the artist don't get any money. Something's wrong there. Show me the money. And that's exactly right. Pension and health is unbelievably important. So there is a, the employers contribute to the SAG after, the SAG Health and pension, the after retirement fund at the pension health is basically what they do. they have in those caps have been limited to a fee an episodic fee that has not been changed since 1983 since 1983 for four decades they have not raised the caps which would be money in to our

insurance company to the you know the health plan um so that our artists could have stay have health insurance. A.I technology is incredibly dangerous right now. Right now, one of the things that the AMPTPA presented was that they will hire a extra for one day of work, which is under $200, like $150, maybe $180. That one day of work, they will scan my person. They create an avatar and they can take my avatar and put it in their library in perpetuity, in perpetuity forever and and I will never see one penny from that. They can utilize me in commercials, in films, in whatever they want. So there is self-tapes.

Actors are paying in order to audition to get a job. The list, as you see, goes on and on, and every single issue is incredibly important. Can I just say something about pension and health because I think it's really important, and I'm going to use myself as an example. We have been asking for those caps to be raised on pension and health. for as long as I can remember from my first negotiation. And furthermore, the cost of healthcare, as we know in the United States, is egregious.

And then on top of that, you have to understand that the actors who do very well subsidize every other actor in the union. The Robin Hood Plan. Yeah, it's a Robin Hood. So actors who are making $150,000 are paying for the person who's making $30,000 to have health insurance.

And those numbers aren't going up. If those caps aren't going up, that's not getting subsidized. At the time, I was, I'm a 19-year survivor of pancreatic cancer. At the time I was diagnosed, I haven't, I've been a working Joe after all of my life. I do some, I'm a guest star, I'm an occasionally a recurring character, I do a commercial, I do a voiceover. But at the time that I was diagnosed, we both had what was then called Plan One Health Insurance.

Because of that, we paid less than $5,000 out of a $2 million bill for my 17 days in Cedar Sinai Hospital. That's right. The doctors don't have that anymore. They don't have that anymore. And it's because they won't raise the caps. The health care system in this country is under the same problem as what we're under, which is the big corporations are charging all of this money for drugs and all of this money for insurance and all of this money, and the average Joe is getting crushed.

This is not just about actors and writers. This is about every laborer in the world. I may ask you ladies to define something that you both said several times that perhaps the viewers don't understand. We both of you explain caps. Yeah, explain the caps. Yes, the caps are the contributions, the employer contributions to episodically.

The employers will contribute episodically to, the pension and health plan. Now, that cap is, I can't remember the exact number of that cap. I'd say it's 25 or 30,000. So I could actually, this is what's insidious. I could actually make $200,000 in doing a show. The cap is 30,000, if that's the number. The producers only have to contribute to 30, not to 200,000 to 30.

So if I was making a million, they're still contributing to that 30. And I want to just get even more clear because what Kitty was saying is, you know, is absolutely true. And what's so sad is that we don't even have what she has been speaking about now. You know, one of the misinformation about actors is that we're all sort of rich and famous and we live in Pantelsis and we have these sort of exotic lives. This is not true. I want to give you an example. The insurance, our health plan right now is $26,000. You need to have $26,000.

We no longer have a plan one or a plan two. This is what happened when the health plan almost folded. They had the trustees had to figure out how to keep, they have a fiduciary responsibility to keep that plan afloat. And they had to figure out how to do it. And what they had to do was they had to get rid of the two. They had to combine it into one. They came to a number in the middle, which is $26,000.

It sounds like maybe some people think that's a lot, some people think that's not much. Now listen to this. You think that actors are all stars. those actors that you watch on television shows all the TV series that you guys are watching that have your favorite actors you say oh there's that guy on that show

you may not know their names you say for me oh there's that girl with the curly hair you know I enjoy her you don't know my name now maybe one year I get to do two three maybe even four guest spots on popular television shows that you all watch I have been forced to take what is called top of show which is a minimum amount of money

that the AMPTP created there is no such language in the SAG after our contracts of Toppa Show that was literally created by AMP to P to basically say, I will not give you more money than this amount if you want to do our show, as if their show is so fantastic. So say I do four of those shows in one year, and I still haven't qualified for health insurance. I need to give you these numbers. 87% of our members, 87% of our members right now have not qualified for health insurance. 98% of all of our members are working below minimum.

That one to two percent, those multi-millionaires, they are the ones who are, you know, holding on to our, keeping our union afloat. There's sometimes these discussions about, well, you know, the big A-listers are making millions of dollars. Why don't they take a pay cut so all the other actors can, you know, get some fee? Guess what?

Those actors deserve that money because they're making money off of, their fee is because of the box office that they have brought in for these streamers. You know who could take a cut? you know who could take a cut in the money the CEOs who are getting bonuses i don't know if you guys saw this this there was an article that came out well when wj went on strike and this was an article about netflix executives who said during the strike we still want to get our bonuses right we're still going to get our bonuses we got those numbers on their bonuses which is on top of their multi-million dollars salaries. They're 25, 35, $40 million that they're making a year. Their bonuses were 10 million, 15 million, 17 million, different millions. We calculated those. That all equaled up to $168 million in bonuses a year. This is just for Netflix. I'm not talking about all the streamers. Do you understand? Do you want to know what the comprehensive package would have cost for the WGA's proposal if they agreed to it? 60 million. 60 million. They're making.

168 million bonuses. So guess what? I can tell you where you can find that money, not by asking actors to take a pay cut, by asking them to not take their bonuses and give a community of people of livelihoods. Yeah. There's a, I did a little research

during, as the strike has begun and looked back at one of the shows from my era of the show we've all, the franchise we've all been a part of. And that show in its last season cost $1.7 million an episode to make. So they spent less than $50 million for the entire season to make that show. It generated over a billion dollars in worldwide profits. $50 million for well over a billion dollar profit.

It's insane. So when you bring up economics, not the actors. Absolutely. not the extras, not the guest stars. And at least back then, there was some language for reasonable residuals that you could rely on because it was the old broadcast model. It was trips indication. It was first run television.

It was reruns. But that model, broadcast television, as you say, has been broken. And all of their money, yeah, all of their money is into streaming. Now, they're all invested in it. And yes, we've got to find. a way to keep people who want to make acting their profession, not amateurs who show up and get excited for a line on a show. When you, I direct and produce television now. And I have been on sets where I've hired someone who is not prepared, who is not a professional. That is not their

trade. And they come in and suddenly they can't remember their lines. And suddenly the other actors are getting frustrated. And the clock is ticking. You know, time is money. And I know, how much time and money we have for that day, and that unprofessional actor is making a huge impact on the quality and the efficiency and the professionalism of our day. And if they destroy the opportunity for working actors to be professionals, to be reliable, to know how to prep a scene, to know their lines, to come in and be prepared, they're going to end up with a lot of amateurs. And that's the direction I fear we're headed and... Less, you know, actors take a stand, unless everyone involved.

Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after a trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What?

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So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at Mint Mobile. dot com slash TDF. That's mintmobile.com slash TDF. Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Not only that, but we've all seen an episodic show where somebody came in and had one scene and blew us away. There's an episode on the show that you were just doing, Michelle, that shall remain nameless, where a guy came in and played a certain

kind of alien, his kind of alien, and was so extraordinary that we were gobsm-he, he was the first version of that alien. We were gobsmacked. Armand said, that's what I should have done when I did the first one on the show before the show I was a regular on. But what we're talking about here, just to broaden out the scope of it, it's the national problem of the inequality of income, that we are the Canarian in the coal mine saying, this is a problem that every industry needs to face. And we are doing our best to not just advocate for the members of our union or the members of the Writers Guilden, but also to tell the world, this has got to stop. The very no we've been talking about, it's not right. It's not fair. You're absolutely right. And that is one of the things

that I do keep trying to stress and the, you know, all of us are here at Sag After and on the picket line is that this is a labor issue. It's a labor issue. We are working people. We're working class. That's why I really wanted to stress that example of doing four guest stars. Doesn't make me a millionaire. It literally makes me someone who's desperately trying to pay my rent. That's the year, Michelle, I'll tell you a person, I'll tell you a personal antidote, the year before I got actually yes the year before i made 13,000 dollars as an actor yeah i said i said the word i didn't mean to say that but i made yes the before i came into this franchise and was a part of the gift that you talk about michel i had a very tough year i had two young children a family i was

the sole breadwinner in that family and i was only able to earn 13,000 Yeah. And you're saying like when was that? That was 1994. Right. And that's happening now, 2023. Remember, 87% of our members have not qualified for health insurance, which is 26,000. That's 26. 87% have not. And 98% are working below. So that was 1990. This is 2023, and it's still happening. Even more agreed. Yeah. Yes, agreed. So far this year, I have done a feature of television. job and poor voiceovers and I'm not any and I'm a senior citizen so I can't use residuals and I'm nowhere near qualifying for health insurance yeah it's it's unacceptable it's unacceptable you know you you know I want to I wish I could plead to somebody's you know you know somebody who has empathy

because we can use a perfect example of the pandemic the pandemic happened everybody shut down we were in our houses what did everybody do what did everybody do to you know soothe their souls to feel connected, to break out of a depressive space, to find some light and happiness, they went to content to the streamers, they went to see us performing, they went to hear people tell them stories, to be swept away, to be taken out of their houses, and to be on, you know, to be on something. Because we are important. We're not, and somebody, I can't remember who just says, this is not a hobby. It's not something cute. It's not something that we just decided to dip in and let's see what we can do. This is a real.

profession and it's incredibly important for the and I know this is not hyperball but this it's incredibly important for developmental um balance in human beings it's how we express ourselves how we it's a common language music dance acting telling this the arts this is part of our our makeup as human beings and to be marginalized and to be uh uh told that we're the fat and they need to trim i mean you guys if anybody saw that quote we actually put it on a white board a white chalkboard in our room in our caucus room to remind us every now and then we would look up the quote when that person said we're just going to wait for the writers to lose their homes and then they'll come and take whatever agreement we meet we want we're going to wait for them to lose their homes this is who we're dealing with this is who we're doing this is this is why you we are, you know, reaching out to the world and hoping that people are hearing this is about corporate greed. This is literally the world in a microcosm of the acting industry. This divide has become so huge and the disconnect with the human impact of that greed is so deep and ugly

that we have to stop. We have to make a change. Now it's now or never. I worked on a show, you talk about greed and about spreadsheets and accountants running this business now. I produced a show a few years ago. We only filmed one season, but it was very popular and very beloved. And it was on the streamer. And this year, the streamer just took it off, took the whole show off because they needed a tax write off. They needed a loss. And so they came up with their four, five, six shows.

that, oh, those numbers seem to match the tax write-off we need. So they just took them away. So people that love that show, it doesn't matter because it's about the spreadsheet. And so the disconnect you talk about between the human experience, it may not be as big as another show, the show that I worked on, but it was beloved. And it was just sad and painful to see this streamer. It's a write-off.

It's a number on a spreadsheet. We're just going to get rid of it. You're absolutely right. You know, it's that and it's even more insidious because we have this discussion in the room with them. So their whole concept is that we, you know, it's a streaming platform, so we have to continue to bring eyes on, right? So they're saying to us, people only watch 10 episodes

and only will stay on for maybe three years. So we have to cancel those things and bring in a new shiny object so that people can watch it. It's also if they wait till five years, they have to end up paying more money. So I encourage everybody to go to your streamers, go to your things, and look at what the seasons are. The majority of streaming shows, as you just said, could be incredibly popular or even little, basically get three seasons on purpose. They're doing this on purpose.

It doesn't even matter if the show was successful or not. They cut it off because they're looking for the next eye to get a streamer. So they cancel that, you know, wash it away, bring in new stars, shine them. us up make us look pretty and say look there's a new show come take you know come join our streamers and then they wait three years and and again let's all remember those three years or i should say three seasons three seasons right those three seasons could take five six eight years to shoot and remember that means i'm shooting for five months and waiting a couple of years till i get picked up to do the second of those 10 episodes, and that's the money I'm supposed to sustain on. I'm supposed to

take care of my family, my children, my health, my rent, my electricity. This is, it's insane. It's insane. I currently produce a show that we are about to start the fifth year that I've been working on that show in the fall. It will be five years that I've been working on it. We've aired two seasons. Two seasons. Two in five years. Yes. Two seasons in five years. And those actors, as you describe Michelle, have been locked in to their contract with this studio. And do they get any money for waiting? Nope. That's important to know. No one gets a penny while they're waiting for somebody to make a decision. I want to add one more thing about this cast. Two seasons, five years, And our lead actor had an opportunity to do something that he was passionate about,

but he had to ask the studio, and they decided, no, it was competitive to their show. So he was told, no, you can't even do this thing that you want to do that doesn't conflict with our show that's taken five years for two seasons. So it's, I just wanted to give that example. I had the same thing when I was doing my show that in my interim, there was another show that wanted me to do a recurring. and my streamers said that I wasn't allowed to. Wasn't allowed to.

I wasn't allowed to. But I need to make a clarification. So we were Sagafra negotiated with Netflix in the fall. I believe it was in the fall. And now, because Netflix was not a member of the AMPTP, moving forward, Netflix will be part of the AMPTP, okay? The contract that we vetted out with Netflix, we were able to procure. to procure a what I call a conflict-free zone because that's what it feels like,

where the actor can now seek work, you know, in between. We also was able to put in there that every, you know, before there was a, they had something like anywhere from 27 to 40 months to whether they can tell us whether we were picked up or not, right? now what it is is that they have 18 months from the beginning of of shooting photography from the beginning of shooting photography so that's you know five six months so you have now 12 months which is understandable because there's if you're doing some sci-fi show there's a lot in months of taking you know to do CGI and all that stuff but now after that 12 months moment Netflix has to pay the artists one episodic fee and it's not an episodic fee that will come out of their future job it's just the amount of money that they were paid to hold the artist for another three months and then another three months and another three months. So they have to do it three times. And after the third time, they can't do it anymore. They can't do it anymore. You can't hold the artist. So it's not, it's not perfect, but we were

trying to carve out a way to help our artists at least do work. And this is on the down low, even though we're doing this thing and hundreds of people can hear. This is my advice to my brothers and sister my actors, ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Go do your other job. Go get that other thing. Show the world that you're not going to confuse people because you're on one show and you do a guest on another thing. Go get that job and say, oh, oh, I'm sorry, after. Don't ask them for permission. And if I may, if I may just add economics to what Michelle just said and what we're all talking about. Let me tell everybody's out there the economics of an actor's paycheck. Okay, we've been listening numbers of what people get. Now I'm going to tell you what the net pay is. First of all, if you,

most everybody has an agent, that's 10% of your pay of the gross disappears. A lot of people have managers. That can be anywhere from 10 to 20% of your gross disappears. The federal government and the state government take about a third of your paycheck. So now you're taking home less than 50% of the money that is your paycheck and that we have to live on. And then on top of that, if you're working out of town, they give you a teeny little amount of money to move. It doesn't really cover the move and live out of town. You're still paying, say your spouse or your partner and your children are living back home. So you're supporting two households. Households. Two households. That on top of it is. That's exactly right.

It's exactly right. I'm ending up paying to be on a show. I'm paying to be on a TV show, a show that is making billions of dollars. Yeah, a lot of these actors that do shows out of town that I have worked with, they have to put down a security deposit. They have to.

So before their first paycheck, they've put out thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars in realtor fees for an apartment in New York and your first and last month's rent. and all, you know, furnishing the place. And they have not even shot one day of film. They've fronted the company.

That's exactly right. So it's one of the, and it's one of the things that we are proposing is the relocation fee percentage. And, you know, just so you guys know, that's also in our package. It's also in our package. Yeah, because most actors work out of town, though. Back when I first started in television in the 80s,

most everything shot in Los Angeles. It was, you know, a fraction of the shows shot out of town. Now most everything shoots out of time. Majority of it. Yes, absolutely majority. Also, the other thing is that if you're working out of town on a film and they're supposed to give you a per diem so that you can live in whatever place you're staying and pay for food and all that stuff, they're supposed to pay it up front, but they don't.

So say you're a working Joe actor who's working for scale and all of a sudden you're running up your credit card so you can eat or you're going to the set even on the days you're not working so that you can eat off the craft service table it's exactly right it's it's really i know people think that's oh you're complaining about this well like but it's you know you're working 14 or 15 hours a day and the next day you want to sleep in but you can't because you want to eat breakfast and you don't have the money to buy it in the hotel don't you don't have the money to buy breakfast And again, this is one of these things, as Kudu saying, for all these years, we've always known that when we go away, you show up a production and they give you your money for your per diem, your per diem, to pay for your lot, you know, being able to eat or to get from A to B. This is my money, my per diem. Now, because once again, it was introduced to us by producers, it's easier for them in their budgeting and their spreadsheets to add it into your paycheck to give you a check. at the end of payment cycles.

It's easier for them. So this is what we're going to do from now on. They don't even realize, because again, again, they're thinking actors are somehow, we're just rich and famous, we're not. Sometimes literally that per diem that I'm going to get when I get there is the money that I have in my pocket,

that I'm so thankful that I have that. They've also done another thing where they call, they have now advanced pay, which is, which we call wage invasion, because advanced pay is, are not sure what the residuals will be. So you know what? We're going to pay you advance of what you possibly may make. That advance pay is somewhere buried in your paycheck. So you're not sure if this is, is this my paycheck? Is this part of my advance pay? My managers and my produce

agents are commissioning it. I don't know where my residuals are now. I mean, it's so, and all of this, all of this is to benefit of business affairs. The people, people who are making the monies and making the contracts, not the actors, not the ones who are hustling to make a dollar. And if I may very quickly, of course the stars can negotiate better things. Of course they can. And by stars, I don't mean the working joys that are sitting here. I'm talking about the people who command million dollar revenues. The one percent. The rest of us, the union, like the union is for most of America,

the union is what protects us from the people who are trying to squeeze out out every time they can't and in that effort is eliminating professions I'll tell you why I got involved in the union and this is a long time ago I did a movie directed by a famous director and for seven weeks they forced our call every day which means that we got less than 12 hours between a rest time between when we left so sometimes we were working by the time i drive home and drive back to the west side i would get five hours asleep sometimes i sleep in my trailer and i couldn't get them to pay us it took five years wow i got that money wow it's it's just it's heartbreaking it's absolutely

heartbreaking well uh is there anything else that we haven't covered i mean we could talk about this If I may, one of the things that Michelle and Kitty can talk about, but if people feel that they'd like to help, here's the one thing I suggest. We have an emergency fund for the people who are going to suffer in our union from this strike, and it's probably going to be a long strike. So if people feel that they'd like to help, you can make a contribution to the Screen Actors Guild Foundation and donate so that they have funds in order to the, you know, to donate to the members who are struggling with the strike. And it's not, by the way, the strike doesn't just affect the members. Unfortunately, in the areas where filming is done, it's going to affect other people as well.

It's going to affect all the people that are behind the camera. But it's also going to affect the dry cleaners, the restaurants, the gardeners, all those people that get paid either by the studios or by the creatives, those people are going to suffer too. But for the creatives, you can donate to the Emergency Fund at the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. We have this. SEG AFTRAFoundation.org. Great.

Thank you, Michelle. Also, reach out to the streamers you watch and say, hey, we want you to make a deal. Everybody just reach it and say, we want you to make a deal that's reasonable for these performers. Yeah. And I advocate that you do not cancel your streaming services. And here's why, because when the strike is over, we need there to be a workplace to go back to work. So if those things all go out of business, we don't want that either because we want them to continue to provide entertainment and selfishly to provide employment. Yeah. Yeah. And just one other side note about the contracts because I would be remissed if I don't speak as a person of color.

Because I always, when I open my mouth, it's generally I speak from a POC, LGBTQ world, PWD, because I can't sit silent when I see marginalized people being abused. One of the things that I just want to just another window into what's going on in our world as actors, people of color when they walk into hair makeup trailers have systemically been, have had physical scars upon their bodies because maybe a barber doesn't know how to shave a black man's face. These black men have been, have walked around with physical scars on their face when they came to shoot a movie. Black women, almost every black woman you would or black, yeah, woman that you would ever speak to, wakes up two to three hours prior to their call to do their own hair. They come to set with their own makeup because they're never given their proper foundation. Some of our actresses, Yvette Nicole Brown, was told to go to special effects to get a foundation. So we're for equity in those rooms.

And, you know, just want, I want all of our people to know that I'm fighting for everybody here. And it's time to change. And I thank you so much, I mean, for saying that, you know, we would really appreciate any contributions. This is going to be a painful strike already. The majority, 98% of our 160,000 members are working below and are struggling to make a living. So I thank you all for saying that and for amplifying this. and I appreciate everybody who's listening, who wants to learn a bit more about what the strike is. It's not about elitist. It's about laborers. It's about the working class. We are you and you are us.

There's one other thing I think you can do. If you're on social media and you hear people going, oh, those entitled actors or oh, those entitled actors, tell them the truth. Tell them what Michelle just said, because it's really important. And if 15% of the people who hear this gave a dollar to the SAG Foundation, it would make a different. in people's life. It really would. It really would. I pick it almost every day. I was at Warner Brothers today, and I saw a friend of mine who's made her health insurance

every year since she's 15. She's 60. This year she didn't make it for the first time. Oh, wow. Wow. 45 years. I mean, right off the bat, 87% cannot make the cutoff for health insurance. Of the 160,000, that's 139,000.

members that can't get health insurance, including myself. I don't have health insurance from SAG. Robbie doesn't have health insurance from SAG either. You know, it's just, it's unbelievable that this is what, and everyone, you're right, most people have this misconception. Every actor is rich and famous. They have unlimited funds. And it's almost like the big wigs in Wall Street also are thinking the same thing about us too. They're like, oh, they got enough money. We can cut off there, you know, pay any time. This is fine. So this is the issue. You know, So everyone, please, whatever support you can lend to this movement, we would much appreciate it. And Robbie and I just want to thank Armin, Kitty, and of course, the lovely Michelle Hurd for being here.

We appreciate all of you and we love you. And thank you for illuminating and giving us more information. And all of our listeners, yeah, they're going to love this. Solidarity, exactly. Solidarity. Union strong, my friends. There you got. Thank you. Thank you.