We may be about to see a strike by members of SAG-AFTRA who provide voices for animated projects for streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Here are some more of the details.
Whenever we see one of these show-biz labor actions, I invariably get e-mails asking me to explain to the best of my ability, what's going on, what's the central issue, who's in the right, etc. The answer is almost always pretty simple: It's about money. One side wants more than they're getting. The other side wants to pay as little as they can for the same reasons that when you go shopping for a new car, you want to find the cheapest possible price.
Sometimes, people clutter these disputes with phony "issues" like when the Writers Guild was demanding a piece of the profits when our work was sold for home video. The producers did not refuse us saying, "No, we just want to keep as much of that money for ourselves and not share." The CEOs did not say, "Hey, if I can get away without giving you guys any part of that loot, I can get a multi-million dollar bonus and buy a bigger condo in Hawaii!" Instead, they said things like this…
While we respect the vital contributions of the writers, they are obviously unaware of the uncertainty of this new, unexplored means of revenue. Rather than risk destroying the nascent home video market by loading it down with burdensome costs, we prefer to wait and see if there even are revenues to share. This is not the time to be demanding a share of a pie that might never exist. As it is, it may never be more than a way for us to recoup some of the massive and increasing deficits we now encounter on traditional film and television production. If it turns out that home video does provide new profits and even a market for expanded production, we will certainly be open to some adjustment to share that revenue with not just the writers but all the hard-working members of our industry.
That of course translates to "I want that bigger condo in Hawaii." That's pretty much what all these disputes are about.
General rule of thumb: Any time an employer or a politician for that matter says, "Now is not the time to do what you want," they mean "No time is or will ever be the right time."
I am, of course, on the side of the actors. And if you're someone who dreams of someday being one of them, you should be. Right now, doing voice work for that kind of material does not generate a living wage. That has to change.