George Clooney’s Proposal to End the SAG-AFTRA Strike, Explained
variety.comGene Maddaus Senior Media Writer George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson and a group of other A-listers gave a proposal to SAG-AFTRA leadership on Tuesday, which they hoped would help end the 98-day actors strike.
But the proposal was rejected on Wednesday by the union’s negotiating committee, which is sticking to the demands it has spelled out over many weeks of negotiations.
To understand why, it might help to delve more deeply into the proposal. There are two main elements: a dues increase on high-earning actors and a change in residuals to ensure that low-earning actors get paid first. Dues Increase Under current rules, SAG-AFTRA members pay $231.96 in base dues each year, plus 1.575% of covered earnings up to $1 million.
The A-listers’ proposal would eliminate that cap, subjecting all covered actor earnings to the 1.575% assessment. Clooney has estimated that would generate $50 million a year. (That sounds high, as it would imply that actors earn about $3.2 billion a year above the cap, which is the equivalent of about 160 actors averaging $21 million a year, which is a reach.) More to the point, the major problem with this is that the SAG-AFTRA strike is not about dues.
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