During the summer of 2023, Hollywood resisted the longest strike by the Federation of Television and Radio Artists of the Television and Radio Federation in the history of the Artist Union.
One of the final negotiation points, a “Robin Hood” background promised for a long time aimed at sharing the benefits of transmission success, has finally been created.
Last week, moments before the union appointed its new president, Sean Astin, the guild announced that a successfully successful distribution fund of the SAG-AFTRA producers had been formally established. Artists in popular shows made by the transmission that could not have been compensated by the audience of their program can now win their “first secondary income flow,” said the Labor Group in a statement.
The system allows income to be shared with a group of union workers, such as substitutes, tricks of tricks and substantive actors.
How does the background work?
As part of the contract that ended the 118-day strike, SAG-AFTRA and the studies agreed to establish a bonus system for actors whose shows reached a certain hearing threshold. Some of these funds would be assigned for a newly created transmission payment distribution fund to benefit additional artists.
When a large budget transmission project attracts 20% of the transmission service audience in the first 90 days of launch, it generally generates a bonus. The seventy-five percent of that bonus goes to the actors in the project, and 25% will now be put in the background to be administered jointly by SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of film and television producers, the group that represents the studies and signatures of transmission in labor treatment. SAG-AFTRA estimates that, during the term of the three-year contract, the total transmission bonus could match around $ 120 million.
Who benefits?
For now, the recipients are restricted to those who work on transmission projects that were issued for the first time on January 1, 2024 or later.
Why is this important for the actors?
The fund was headed by Fran Drescher, the outgoing president of the SAG-AFTRA Union, as a way to help workers adapt to the transmission business model. Before transmitting, the actors would receive the payment when a popular show entered into union. But in the transmission, there is no direct equivalent for the syndication, and that means that the actors whose programs do not meet the bonus criteria are left behind.
“This is the last piece of puzzles of the TV/Theatrical/Transmission 2023 contract,” Dresher said in a press release. “And for the first time in the history of our union, members of acrobatics and background communities that work a minimum of 25 days will also receive the bonus.”
The landscape of the Hollywood actors is composed of those who have and not, with the highly paid stars that represent a small minority of union membership. SAG-AFTRA is composed of around 160,000 members, but only 14% earn at least $ 26,470 to qualify for union health insurance and 7% earn $ 80,000 or more a year. The idea of the bonus fund is to help act is a more sustainable race in the transmission era.
What follows?
A trustee negotiation committee, both of the employers and the union, is ready to decide how money will be distributed. The union has also secured an expanded list of eligible productions. Time and eligibility have not yet been revealed, as well as the small print of the background.
The current SAG-AFTRA contract will expire in June 2026.
