Dear Union Member,

As you are certainly aware SAG/AFTRA workers have been on strike for 14 weeks now.  You may also be aware that IATSE and DGA leaders have pledged their support although each union's "no-strike" clause prevents them from directing their members to honor actors' picket lines.  Your union leadership is well aware of the advertisers' intention to maximize long-term profits at any short-term cost.  This means that if SAG/AFTRA contracts are
dismantled, the next targets will be any and all other labor forces within the production community.  If we fall, you're next in line.  Help us stop them before they get to you.

We know that the strike has caused a significant drop in local production and that this drop has a direct effect on your employment opportunities. Understandably, many of you are frustrated about the financial difficulties this decrease in production causes for you.  You may also have worked a picketed shoot and experienced the inevitably unpleasant working environment that comes with a picket.  We hope that our captains have treated you with the respect our training emphasizes.  If there have been lapses in courtesy, please understand that they have not been sanctioned by our leadership and accept our apologies.   Emotions run high in this conflict and our anger is directed at the scab actors, the client, and the agency people, not at you. 

Conversations with your fellow members have revealed certain misconceptions about exactly why we're striking.  Media spin from the advertisers can only contribute to those misconceptions.  We'd like to take this opportunity to clear them up and give you the facts.  

SAG and AFTRA have repeatedly indicated a willingness to negotiate.  The unions have altered their proposals in many ways to seek a mutually agreeable contract.  The advertisers have not moved from their last offer of April 14th.  Under that "final" offer the pay-per-play residual system for network commercials (put in place 35 years ago) would end.  Their proposal would allow unlimited use of our work for an unlimited time in all media. They refuse to consider a cable proposal that would compensate actors for their exposure based on the size of the markets reached.  They refuse to discuss independent monitoring of use despite solid documentation of fraudulent reporting.  Finally, they refuse to discuss the internet at all despite claiming in the press that they want to "modernize" the contract.  In the face of our willingness to negotiate these points, advertisers have flatly refused to budge. 

Put yourself in our place and try to understand why we cannot accept a flat-fee system of payment for unlimited use.  Over-exposure is a major concern for commercial actors and the residual system is the only method for paying actors based on actual exposure.  Imagine, if you can, finding that none of the production houses you're usually hired by will give you a job because you shot something else that ran a lot.  Let's say that HKM couldn't hire you for their upcoming GE shoot because you were the camera operator, key grip, gaffer, or stylist for Hungry Man's NIKE spot shot in June.  Your work is great; everybody likes you; but the NIKE spot is airing in so many markets, so many times a day, that the agency and client for GE won't let them hire you.  That's what it's like for a "successful" commercial actor.  

What we share with crew and production employees is our position as unionized workers that the advertisers need to get the work done right.  The nationwide trend is toward maximizing corporate profits by cutting middle-class wages.  The fact of the matter is that celebrities will always  make plenty under this contract.  It's us, the middle-class workers whose rent and mortgage payments depend, as yours do, on regular bookings, who are now suffering and whose livelihoods would be destroyed by a flat-fee system. Our pension and health funds would be bankrupted by this reduction in wages and few scale workers would meet the earnings requirements to provide health insurance to our families.  Help stop this tide now before it reaches you when your contract expires.  If they have succeeded in breaking SAG/AFTRA you can be sure that the advertisers will be happy to take on IATSE and DGA. 

How can you help?  Well, there are many ways, most of which will be obvious to you if you stop to think, "If a scab were taking my job, how would I want my union brothers and sisters to help me?" 
Many of your fellow members are already in contact with us and we appreciate the solidarity.  If you would like to add yourself to the ranks of union members offering support please call (212) 582-6158 ext 211 or, during business hours, (212) 582-6294. 
Help us make the strike more effective so it will end sooner and the work will come back to New York.  We look forward to rejoining you on the set. 

In Solidarity,

The New York SAG/AFTRA Strike Force