Tweet
Stage, television, and screen actors have been famously unionized for decades, and the Screen Actors Guild just resolved a messy contract dispute with producers. So, it makes perfect sense that a new online campaign features forty-seven award-winning actors in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The star-studded video from Artists for Workers Choice is chockfull of members of SAG, AFTRA, and Actors Equity. And it’s a union-made production, including the participation of American Federation of Musicians, Writers Guild, Directors Guild, and IATSE members.
In the fast-paced montage, many famous faces explain:
This is not a red state issue. Or a blue state issue. It’s a workers’ issue. Please join me, and working people everywhere, in supporting a real change in labor law because it’s time the economy worked for everyone.
A press release issued by Artists for Workers Choice lets Jerry Stiller add an exclamation point to the message:
I’ve belonged to three unions in my life, and every one gave me the freedom to bargain with my co-workers for decent hours, benefits and safe conditions. . . . If all workers don’t have the freedom to form unions, I don’t see how we can fix our economy.
Stiller appears alongside a long list of other union actors. Who’s on that list? Glad you asked:
F. Murray Abraham, Polly Adams, David Alan Basche, P.J. Benjamin, Amy Brenneman, Kate Burton, Gabrielle Carteris, James Cromwell, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, John Cunningham, Emilio Delgado, Andre DeShields, Kevin Dobson, Mike Farrell, Sam Freed, Ed Fry, Jason George, Nancy Giles, Elliott Gould, Holter Graham, Valerie Harper, Don Hastings, Gregory Jbara, Anne-Marie Johnson, S. Marc Jordan, Kevin Kilner, Michele Lee, Kate Linder, James Lurie, Richard Masur, Anne Meara, Esai Morales, Robert Newman, Kathleen Noone, Nancy Opel, Robert Pine, Roberta Reardon, Sam Robards, Alan Rosenberg, Ned Schmidtke, Charles Shaughnessy, Chris Shiflett, Kate Shindle, Connie Stevens, Jerry Stiller, Paul F. Tompkins and Mark Zimmerman.
[An expanded version of this post appears on La Figa.]
7 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Where are Ben Stein, Keifer Sutherland and Kelsey Grammer?
That is a very cool Ad. :)
Good on them, although I am so out of the loop on popular culture these days I don’t know who half of these “stars” are!
And the ones I do know are OLD! When did that happen??
Gregg Levine has breaking news about CIA briefing Nancy Pelosi: “BREAKING: Pelosi Says “The CIA is Lying””
not to derail your point or anything, lisa, but we have yet to vote on the contract. and i can tell you that a large percentage of sag actors are not happy w/the contract negotiations. this “messy contract dispute” that has been “resolved” provides little to no (literally) compensation for work shown on the internet, and many actors fear that this will become the distribution system of choice for programming in the very near future (read: next year). so all our pay, as well as our funding for pension and health benefits, will be reduced by around 80-90%.
i know many actors that are planning to vote ‘no’ on the contract.
Skippy, I live in an acting-supported household and owe my health insurance to SAG. I respect that your actor friends and you don’t agree with the current negotiations. The actors, crew and studio support staff I deal with on a regular basis are fine with it, they don’t want a strike and they wish this agreement had happened back when pay hikes were on the table.