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SAG-AFTRA Union Goes on Strike Against 11 Video Game Companies
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) union declared last Friday that it has officially gone on strike after 19 months of unsuccessful negotiations over the renewal of the Interactive Media Agreement labor contract, which expired at the end of 2014.
The strike affects 11 companies, including: Activision Publishing, Inc.; Blindlight, LLC; Corps of Discovery Films; Disney Character Voices, Inc.; Electronic Arts Productions, Inc.; Formosa Interactive, LLC.; Insomniac Games, Inc.; Interactive Associates, Inc.; Take 2 Interactive Software; VoiceWorks Productions, Inc.; and WB Games, Inc. The strike affects games that began development at those companies on February 17, 2015 and onward.
The strike primarily concerns the secondary compensation for the actors, and transparency over the roles they will play. SAG-AFTRA is demanding that voice actors receive bonuses when game sales reach 2 million units, and that companies disclose the title and nature of the project and role that a voice actor will be working in, so that actors can make an educated decision when deciding to play the role.
The union is planning to picket the Electronic Arts (EA) Los Angeles office at Playa del Ray, Los Angeles on Monday at 10:30 a.m. PDT (1:30 p.m. EDT).
The members of the union voted in October 2015 to grant the union's board the authority to call a strike as part of the negotiations. 96.5% of the members voted in favor of the measure.
Scott J. Witlin, from the Barnes & Thornburg law firm, the chief negotiator for the companies in the labor dispute, stated that the companies "did everything in their power to reach agreement with union leaders, offering a money package almost identical to SAG-AFTRA's last demand." The law firm claimed that it called upon the union leadership to put the companies' final proposal to a vote for the members, rather than strike. Witlin also clarified that the companies could not adopt the payment structure that SAG-AFTRA demanded as it would be unfair to video game developers working on the games but do not benefit from a similar payment structure.
Source: Variety (Dave McNary)
