The dramatic cat-and-mouse recreation that led to Paramount Skydance’s profitable bid for Warner Bros. Discovery stored the SAG-AFTRA analytics workforce on excessive alert for weeks – however the actors’ union continues to be not able to render its verdict on what it means for members, govt director Duncan Crabtree-Eire mentioned Sunday.
Crabtree-Eire spoke with TheWrap from the purple carpet of the thirty second Annual Actor Awards on the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Corridor. Requested about what the union is doing to guard its members within the face of the upcoming megamerger, he remained noncommittal – however not as a result of the union hasn’t been scrambling to maintain up with the information.
“This has been such a risky course of that we’ve all been coping with,” he mentioned. “We’ve a media and labor economics workforce throughout the union whose job is to investigate issues like this, they usually have been arduous at work analyzing the implications of the merger, and naturally, with each new supply, with each new configuration that requires a brand new in depth evaluation.”
Even with the supply within the bag and all that effort, SAG-AFTRA isn’t fairly able to make the decision.
“So we haven’t come out and assist or in opposition to – at the moment we’re doing that evaluation, however when the time is true for us to say one thing about that, we are going to, and I can guarantee you that it will likely be pushed by what’s in one of the best curiosity of SAG AFTRA as members, which I feel shall be very aligned with the pursuits of different employees within the trade as nicely,” he mentioned.
Watch his full assertion within the video beneath.
Crabtree-Eire was additionally requested concerning the ongoing Writers Guild strike, and what it might imply for upcoming SAG-AFTRA talks.
“We’re a union essentially so we clearly assist union employees rights to arrange, rights to have interaction in collective bargaining,” he mentioned. “With the Writers Guild about to launch into their very own negotiations … we stand in full unity and solidarity with them in that course of. These negotiations, the negotiations with the studios and streamers, are going to be completely important to transferring the trade ahead and have an effect on many 10s of 1000s of employees within the trade. So we’re standing in unity with the appropriate expert on that and naturally, supporting each employees proper to arrange, to collectively cut price, and if crucial, to strike.”
