We fixed the SAG-AFTRA website’s “About” page for you
Welcome to Created By, a digital series by Hollywood Workers for Peace highlighting the stories of Hollywood laborers who are challenging our industry to end its support of state violence and imperialism.
Throughout this series, you will find essays on subjects such as being an anti-Zionist in Hollywood amid heightened censorship, explainers on the importance of connecting struggles like the genocide in Sudan and police brutality in the United States, Q&As with organizers and activists in our industry, updates on protests, and more.
You can read our previous entry in this series here.
If you have a story you’d like to publish with us or an idea for a story you think we should cover, please email us at: wgaforpeace@gmail.com. If your story is approved, you will work with experienced editors to prepare it for publication, with the option to publish anonymously or with your name attached. In solidarity!
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By Anonymous
This post updates language from https://www.sagaftra.org/about and https://www.sagaftra.org/about/mission-statement to more accurately reflect its treatment of members of color.
ABOUT
SAG-AFTRA represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals.
SAG-AFTRA members are the faces and voices that entertain and inform ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶ the United States and the world. The content that Hollywood creates influences the ways we perceive and treat one another on a global scale. The U.S. is just one country in the Americas, which are two continents consisting of fifty-seven countries (35) and territories (22) altogether. With national offices in Los Angeles and New York, and local offices nationwide, SAG-AFTRA members work together to secure the strongest protections for media artists into the 21st century and beyond. However, we pick and choose which media artists to protect, and when. We are not doing much to protect actors who show support for Palestine from the threat of blacklisting today, for instance. Consistent with our history of picking and choosing, as we also failed this duty during the red scare.
MISSION STATEMENT
“SAG-AFTRA brings together two great American labor unions: Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Both were formed in the turmoil of the 1930s, with rich histories of fighting for and securing the strongest protections for predominantly straight white male media artists. Every president of our union(s) has been white, mostly white men. This highlights a problem of structural white supremacy endemic to our union and industry. Our members united to form the successor union in order to preserve those hard-won rights and to continue the struggle to extend and expand those protections into the 21st century and beyond. We are actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, dj’s, news writers, news directors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals. Our work is seen and heard in theaters, on television and radio, sound recordings, the internet, games, mobile devices, home video: you see ̶u̶s̶ and hear ̶u̶s̶ mostly our white members on all media distribution platforms, as white people are still historically overrepresented in U.S. media relative to their numbers in the U.S. This has constructed a false narrative about the actual diversity of the U.S., and actively renders members of color as less valuable. This affects their earning potential, and their ability to qualify for Pension & Health benefits. We are the faces and the voices that entertain and inform America and the world. Therefore, lacking authentic, balanced and inclusive representation goes beyond our individual opportunities to earn a living. It also creates false narratives that shape negative perceptions about the communities of color we are supposed to represent.
SAG-AFTRA is committed to organizing all work done under our jurisdictions; negotiating the best wages, working conditions, and health and pension benefits; preserving and expanding members’ work opportunities; vigorously enforcing our contracts; and protecting members against unauthorized use of their work. We make exceptions for some issues, like support for Palestine.
A proud member of the AFL-CIO, SAG-AFTRA partners with our fellow unions in the U.S. and internationally to seek the strongest protections for media artists throughout the world. We work with governments at the international, federal, state, and local levels as their propaganda machine, while sometimes attempting to expand protections for ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ U.S. media professionals both at home and abroad. (As we’ve mentioned, the U.S. is one country in the Americas. Calling it America is imperialist language.)
It is a core value of SAG-AFTRA that our strength is in our diversity. Although we are not expanding on that important statement here, it sounds good. We are committed to the broadest employment and involvement of our members, regardless of race, national origin, ancestry, color, creed, religion, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, veteran status, gender identity or expression, age or disability. How do we put this commitment into practice? You won’t find out here. We make this claim even though we do not have the data to support it. We don’t seem to know how diverse our membership actually is, and members from marginalized communities have consistently been underrepresented in positions of power… unless they fall in line with our internal power structure.
SAG-AFTRA strives to educate and engage members so that they may be full participants in the workings of their union. This sounds nice, but in practice there is a lack of transparency about how our internal processes work, and it’s not clear if committees properly document what they have done. We need more transparency so that power is not concentrated among the few. We are proud to be a model of inequitable inclusion, ̶d̶e̶m̶o̶c̶r̶a̶t̶i̶c̶ oligarchic organization and governance.
There are many consequences to this imbalance of power, lack of real diversity, and lack of transparency. For example, when it comes to choosing what political issues the union addresses and when, there is no clear criteria. Often, these decisions seem to be the unilateral choice of those in power.
For example:
ISSUE
Palestine-Genocide
UNION SPOKEN UP?
NO
DATE/LINK REASON/EXCUSE
Union tends to not speak on political issues/current President is a zionist/Afraid of pushback from some members. If enough members speak up, maybe leadership will do something
_____
ISSUE
Oct.7 Hamas-led attack on Israel
UNION SPOKEN UP?
YES Oct. 2023
DATE/LINK REASON/EXCUSE
No member had to lift a finger for “leadership” to speak up.
____
ISSUE
Black Lives Matter
UNION SPOKEN UP?
YES Aug. 2020
DATE/LINK REASON/EXCUSE
____
ISSUE
Stop Asian Hate
UNION SPOKEN UP?
YES Mar. 2021
DATE/LINK REASON/EXCUSE
____
ISSUE
Gun Control
UNION SPOKEN UP?
NO
DATE/LINK REASON/EXCUSE
Afraid of pushback from some members
____
ISSUE
Families Belong Together
UNION SPOKEN UP?
NO
DATE/LINK REASON/EXCUSE
?
____
We could go on, but the point is that structural white supremacy and lack of true democratic processes within our union contribute to the complicity of U.S. media in the oppression of many people of color. The union must do a better job at representing us all in a fair and balanced way.
