UK actors’ union Equity prepares advice for its members as SAG-AFTRA prepares for Thursday’s strike.
Variety believes the union, which has 50,000 members, has agreed on a basic position with its US counterpart. These rules apply to British productions and the two groups are currently working out the finer points.
Equity is asking its members to check its website for specific advice on Thursday around 8pm UK time, coinciding with a SAG-AFTRA press conference in Los Angeles at 12pm Pacific time where the actors’ strike will be formally announced.
Sources indicate that the UK’s strict trade union laws are preventing a full demonstration of solidarity from Equity, which is unable to call a legal strike in support of SAG-AFTRA due to restrictive UK legislation.
The London-based organization is the 12th largest union in the UK and represents actors, singers, dancers, designers, directors, stage managers and voice actors, among others. As the profile of British talent in Hollywood has grown over the past decade, so has the power of equity.
The British Actors’ Union has so far remained silent about the advice given to its members. This is mainly because crafting the rules of the game during a strike is an extensive process embedded in the legalities of a particular jurisdiction. Equity General Secretary Paul W. Fleming met with SAG-AFTRA in Los Angeles last month to discuss the unions’ joint agenda, and the board told Variety in late June that Equity would not in any way “undermine” its American counterpart.
SAG-AFTRA’s contract expired June 30, but the union extended negotiations with Hollywood’s collective bargaining partner, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, to July 12. However, during the extension period, talks broke down and no agreement was reached. SAG-AFTRA’s contract expires on Wednesday evening.
SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 artists, has not struck against the film and television companies since the 1980s. The last time actors and writers went on strike at the same time was in 1960.
The union is looking for a residual streaming formula that would explain the success of shows. The studios were unwilling to disclose their own viewership data, leading SAG-AFTRA to propose using metrics from Parrot Analytics, an outside data company.
She is also seeking regulations on the use of artificial intelligence, which would require actors to be paid for any AI-generated use of their likeness, restrictions on self-taped auditions, and a host of other issues.
In a message to its members early Thursday, the union stressed that both streaming and AI are key issues in the negotiations.
Many of these issues affecting American artists have also resonated in Britain. In recent years, concerns about artificial intelligence and self-taped auditions have been just as widespread in the UK. “Honestly, if you read the SAG-AFTRA claim, these are absolutely the same issues that we discuss with producers in the UK,” Fleming told Variety last month.