Week 25 of Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast comes amid a tough time on the negotiations front between SAG-AFTRA and the studios. No formal talks have taken place or have even been scheduled since October 11, when bargaining was suspended amid the latest impasse.
The stalemate led to a group of A-list actors including George Clooney, Emma Stone, Ben Affleck, Tyler Perry and Scarlett Johansson offering to break the stalemate with a plan that would see Hollywood’s biggest earners defraying the costs to AMPTP signatories by eliminating the cap on membership dues, to be used to bolster health benefits and other areas that SAG-AFTRA is trying to shore up. The union has since said the offer was appreciated but not feasible.
Amid all this, Strike Talk host Billy Ray is joined this week by Steve Schmidt, founder of The Warning newsletter, YouTube channel and podcast, and a political commentator and strategist. The pair investigate the economic roots of America’s current state of disruption, dissecting why trust in institutions is at an all-time low, the isolating impact of technology, and how the ongoing actors strike fits into the larger American labor movement.
Listen here:
