SAG-AFTRA Approves Path To Membership For Intimacy Coordinators

deadline.com:

SAG-AFTRA’s national board has approved a resolution to create a path to membership for intimacy coordinators, who serve as advocates and liaisons between performers and productions when nudity and intimate scenes are being filmed. “The role of intimacy coordinators greatly improves safety and well-being on sets and in productions requiring intimate scenes,” said Fran Drescher, the union’s president. “Their value is immeasurable and the National Board is committed to bringing intimacy coordinators into the SAG-AFTRA family and ensuring they have the kind of benefits and protections other members already enjoy. “Intimacy coordinators, many of whom already are SAG-AFTRA members, have become an essential on-set resource for cast and crew alike,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s national executive director. “This decision furthers our mission of making on-set safety an industrywide standard and priority, and welcomes other talented, dedicated workers to join us.” In June, the union announced the publication of an intimacy coordinator registry and pre-registry, which serve as a resource to help producers identify qualified and experienced intimacy coordinators.In her president’s report, Drescher spoke on voting rights and women’s rights, saying that “Everyone has the right to have their concerns raised and considered.

In a democracy, you may not like the outcome of a particular vote, but as Americans it is your duty to protect and defend the process by which outcomes are determined.”A press release about the meeting posted on the SAG-AFTRA website doesn’t mention the contentious and two-hour long debate that Drescher got into with members of the board about the vaccination mandate in the industry’s Covid-19