Producers & Screen Actors Guild Send Clear Message to Union Background Artists: Let Them Eat Cake!

Background Artists provide film directors the freedom with which to achieve their creative vision for the mise-en-scène in film & television

In 2016 - one full year before the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) Contract in effect at that time was set to expire - the Background Artists Coalition opened a dialogue with the Screen Actors Guild Leadership (SAG-AFTRA) in order to make sure that our Union planned to vigorously advocate for a significant raise for Union Background Artists in the 2017 Contract Negotiations as Union Background Artists - who constitute the Majority Membership of the AFL-CIO affiliated Labor Union known as SAG-AFTRA - had not been granted an actual raise for decades (beyond the historic 2.5%-3% Cost of Living Increase which in NYC & LA - where most production work is done - constitutes an Actual Loss of 1/2%-1% in Union Wage Rate Earnings and an even Greater Loss when Adjusted for Inflation).  

The Background Artists Coalition's Advocacy in 2016 had a very real urgency to it for two specific reasons:

1.) The NY State Legislature had just voted to raise the Minimum Hourly Wage in NYC (where the film & television industry was & still is booming) by a whopping Sixty-Six Percent (66%) which would bring the Non-Union Background Artist's Wage Rate closer to that of the Union Background Artists Wage Rate, thereby, creating a disincentive to join the Union and expanding exponentially the pool of Non-Union Actors working in the NY film & television industry; a phenomenon that in 2016 we told SAG-AFTRA Leadership would ultimately weaken the Screen Actor's Guild and undermine the Union’s power at the Bargaining Table and

2.) Because Union Background Artists had not been granted an actual raise in many years (as described above) and because the Union had allowed Film & Television Producers to Reduce the Required Numbers of Union Background Roles on all production contract across all media (resulting in fewer Union Background Jobs), SAG-AFTRA had reduced Union Background Artists Earnings from Middle Class to Poverty where Union Background Artists were on average (generously) making One Thousand-One Hundred Dollars ($1,100) per month.

The Background Artists Coalition also made the point to SAG-AFTRA Leadership that if the NY State Legislature - a Republican-controlled body at the time; so not exactly a hot bed of left-wing workers rights advocates - recognized that the NY State standard historic incremental minimum wage increase was inadequate given the realities of the cost of living in NYC, that certainly Hollywood's vaunted Screen Actors Guild Labor Union must also recognize that the time had come for Union Background Artists to receive a real raise.

Underscoring our argument to Union Leadership was the fact that the historic incremental minimum wage increase in NY State had been around Eight Precent (8%) - already significantly higher than the historic Union Wage Rate COL Increase for the Screen Actors Guild Majority Membership Rank & File which is around 2.5%-3% - and yet even the Republican-led NY State Legislature had decided it had become essential to the very Survival of New Yorkers to boost the Hourly Minimum Wage Rate by a whooping Sixty-Six Percent (66%) in 2016. So, certainly, Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild could and should do better for its Majority Membership Rank & File than a bunch of Right-Leaning Albany Legislators.

As we made out our case to SAG-AFTRA Leadership in 2016, the Leadership was appropriately responsive; enthusiastically agreeing with our rationale, goal and request. 

And as a result of that dialogue, in writing, SAG-AFTRA Leadership agreed to advocate for our request for an Actual Raise for Union Background Artists in the 2017 SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiations; beyond the historic 2.5%-3% COL increase that doesn’t even meet the realities of a Cost of Living increase in either NYC or LA, where the bulk of film & television production work takes place. 

So imagine how we felt when a year later, SAG-AFTRA Leadership admitted, in writing, that it had not only failed to keep its promise to the Background Artists Coalition, but worse yet, SAG-AFTRA Leadership admitted, in writing, that OUR UNION FAILED TO EVEN ASK Producers - during the 2017 SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiations - for the Union Background Artists Raise for which SAG-AFTRA Leadership had promised to advocate on our behalf.

Needless to say, the Background Artists Coalition was stunned: We thought, but how could something like this have happened? We had done everything right. We had timely approached our Union's Leadership a full year ahead of the 2017 SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiations. We had included in our discussions Rank & File Union Members, SAG-AFTRA Leadership, SAG-AFTRA Staff, et al. The most significant aspects of our discussions with SAG-AFTRA Leadership about the raise so imperative for Union Background Artists were in writing. 

And SAG-AFTRA’s pledge to the Background Artists Coalition that the Union Leadership would vigorously advocate for an actual Raise for Union Background Artists was also in writing. 

Yet, when push came to shove, SAG-AFTRA Leadership broke its written promise to the Background Artists Coalition and never even ASKED for a raise for Union Background Artists during the 2017 SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiations.

Now, all of this history is suddenly relevant again.

For the Screen Actors Guild is in the midst of conversations, meetings and "caucuses" about what happens when that 2017 Contract (the one in which Union Background Artists did not get the Raise our Union Leadership Promised and failed to advocate for on our behalf) expires next year and what the Wage & Working Conditions will look like in the 2020 SAG-AFTRA Contract.

So, after working quietly behind the scenes with SAG-AFTRA Leadership in 2016-2017, and being burned by our own Union Leadership in the process, this time around, the Background Artists Coalition has taken its Campaign - for a fair wage, the Restoration of Union Background Jobs and a SAG-AFTRA “Buy-In” for our own Union’s Health Insurance Plan into which we all contribute but for which most Union Background Artists can not meet the income eligibility requirement for the reasons described above - Public.

Of course, were our Union a true democracy, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation because as the largest constituency in the Screen Actors Guild, Background Artists would have had proportionate representation on the SAG-AFTRA National Board in both 2016 and 2017, and those representatives would have made sure that our 2016 request for an actual raise for Union Background Artists did not get swept under the carpet, never to see the light of day.

We hope you will indulge us for a moment as we share with you just a wee bit more SAG-AFTRA history: For, as everything in life is about context, you should be aware that in 2015 - the year before we approached SAG-AFTRA Leadership - asking our Union to make sure it advocated in the 2017 Contract Negotiations for an actual Raise for Union Background Artists beyond the inadequate historic incremental 2.5%-3% COL increase - the SAG-AFTRA Leadership and Staff granted itself pay increases between 33% and 77%. Yes. You heard that right. But given the OUTSIZE largesse of those self-dealing raises, it warrants repeating:

In 2015, SAG-AFTRA Leadership and Staff granted itself pay raises between 33% and 77%.

So in the summer of 2017, when a SAG-AFTRA Board Member scolded the Background Artists Coalition - in writing - for having the sheer audacity to try to hold accountable SAG-AFTRA Leadership for the fact that it had broken its written promise to ask for an actual Raise for Union Background Artists during the 2017 SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiations - literally telling us that we should be happy with what we got! (an earnings loss) - his thoughtless admonishment reverberated throughout our empty refrigerators, echoing the original One-Percenter herself, Marie Antoinette - an historic figure so grossly far out of touch with the vast Majority of the French People that she has come to symbolize the very essence of sanctimony and privilege - when she so vulgarly spat out those now infamous (if apocryphal) words, "Let Them Eat Cake!"