“What happens here is important because what is happening to us is happening in all fields of work. When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority, they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine work”, were the words of the actress Fran Drescher and I add: “We are the victims here. We are being victims of a very greedy entity. I’m amazed at the way the people we’ve been in business with are treating us.”
The actress of the well-known sitcom “The Nanny” is the current President of Sag-Aftrathe main union of actors and interpreters of Hollywood. For months now, the American audiovisual industry has been experiencing a strong strike by scriptwriters and writers demanding better remuneration. The consequences of the pandemic strengthened the streaming format throughout the world, becoming an economic boom, but this increase was not reflected in the salaries of workers in the film and television fields.
In this regard, the actors unions spoke out, through the union leader and protagonist of “The Nanny”, about the situation they live in the Hollywood workplace. Drescher expressed: “I can’t believe, frankly, how far along we are on so many things. How they claim poverty, that they are losing money left and right when they hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It’s disgusting. I am ashamed of them. They are on the wrong side of history.”
This Thursday it was announced that 160,000 Sag-Aftra membersfrom big stars to minor actors, will join the Writers Guild of America (American union that brings together writers and screenwriters) in a strike, which will mark the biggest closure of Hollywood since the last time both unions went on strike together in 1960. According to the British outlet The Guardian, these unions are fighting for better terms with the Film and Television Producers Alliance, an entity representing major studios and broadcasters, including Amazon, Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The 65-year-old actress’ fiery speech, shaking her fists and sometimes blinking back tears, was accompanied with these closing words: “Wake up and smell the coffee We demand respect! You cannot exist without us!”. Members of Sag Aftra that they stop any work related to the productions, including red carpets and promoting their work on social media. Even the London premiere of “Openheimer” of Christopher Nolan it was moved up an hour to prevent the start of the strike, and the cast left during the film as officially announced.
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