Labor unions bargain with the employers and organizations for the employees who have registered with them members by negotiating employment agreements. Labor unions have experienced significant changes over the years. According to Fuller (2019), union membership in the United States started as early as the 1900s, and the history of workers in terms of their organized labor has gained much scholarly interest. Both WGA and SAG-AFTRA are labor unions that fight for the rights of its members in Hollywood. SAG-AFTRA has more than 170,000 actors in commercials, television and radio, video game performers, radio personalities and recording artists. WGA has approximately 20,000 members. WGA fights for the rights of its members like wage reductions, revenue and residuals pertaining to the new media. SAG-AFTRA passed the National Labor Relations Act and aims at minimizing the actor’s exploitation to performers who were forced into multi-year contracts with film studios (Fortmueller, 2016).
Since the rapid developments of technology has significant impacts on the production and distribution of work over by media industry, then work unions can play a big role in negotiating a fair agreement with the employees. Even though the two unions differ in terms of their rules and regulation, both aims at protecting the rights of employees at Hollywood. Even in times when the work is so stressful and all meetings and negotiations are failing, WGA still aimed at getting higher pays for TV writers as well as increasing the public health. SAG-AFTRA secures better arrangements for those actors that recur roles without signing a series deal. Additionally, the union provided arrangements with no restrictions on their working hours and gave studios ownership of the actors’ professional and personal lives. It is therefore clear that the two unions had been of great importance to those working in Hollywood and without them, the rights of the workers could have been exploited terribly.
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References
Fortmueller, K. (2016). The SAG–AFTRA Merger: Union Convergence in a Changing Media Landscape. Television & New Media, 17(3), 212-227.
Fuller, R. P., & Rice, R. E. (2019). Portraying Protracted Conflict in the Entertainment Industry: The case of the Screen Actors Guild negotiations. Journalism Studies, 20(9), 1339-1356.
