Nobody wants a work stoppage.
But if our leadership is saying that the deal isn't fair,
then we got to hold strong till we get a deal that's fair for working actors.
It's the difference between having health care and not for a lot of actors, and
we got to do what's right by them.
>> That was Matt Damon at the world premiere of Oppenheimer.
And shortly after that comment, he and his fellow cast members
actually knocked off of their own premiere because a deal has not
been reached by the union representing the actors and the studios.
And as a result, the strike is on.
About 150,000 actors will be on strike beginning midnight,
and it's because they have not reached a deal with the AMPTP,
which represents the major Hollywood studios.
So I want to give you guys some details on what this means.
First of all,
it has been decades since this type of strike has taken place among the actors.
It's been over 40 years since the actors walked off on strike, and it's been over
60 years since the actors and writers were both on strike at the same time.
In fact, in 1960 this is a fun fact when the actors and writers last went on strike
together, the president of SAG, the Screen Actors Guild, was Ronald Reagan.
But here is what the president for SAG, Fran Drescher,
said of the unsuccessful negotiations.
>> I cannot believe it, quite frankly,
how far apart we are on so many things.
How they plead poverty that they're losing money left and
right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs.
It is disgusting.
Shame on them.
They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.
You cannot keep being dwindled and
marginalized and disrespected and dishonored.
The entire business model has been
changed by streaming digital AI.
This is a moment of history.
That is a moment of truth.
If we don't stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble.
We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and
big business.
Who cares more about Wall Street than you and your family?
Most of Americans don't have more than $500 in an emergency.
>> And those are some powerful statements.
In fact, the entire press conference is up online.
And I highly recommend you all watch it because you'll notice a lot of
similarities between the workers who have complained in other contexts before.
And what the representatives over at the Screen Actors Guild are saying
about the precarious nature of acting these days.
And what the job has kind of turned into,
how much the job has changed with streaming and with AI.
And how during these contract negotiations, what really stood out to her
was how they want to just keep going along as if things haven't changed.
They want to negotiate the same way they want to pretend as if the industry hasn't
changed.
And that obviously puts the workers, the actors,
in this case, at a significant disadvantage.
So the two sticking points and we've talked about this before, include wages.
And also ensuring that there are safeguards in place
to protect jobs as the AI technology continues to advance and
continues to kind of infiltrate this industry.
Now, the exact details of negotiations and
why they broke down are not fully known yet.
Meanwhile, the studios insist that they have offered their best provisions,
given the state of their finances.
I'll give you the details on what they claim and show you some of the pay for
top executives in just a moment.
But before I do, Cenk, I wanted to open it up to you.
>> Yeah, so a couple of small points.
First, franchiseer was criticized for
being too soft before in these negotiations.
So she kind of had to give a fiery speech.
And she did.
And she gave a good fiery speech.
So I think that probably shores up her standing a little bit with her
own members.
That's good, smart thinking and optics and marketing.
Let's keep it real.
But that stuff is important because to some degree,
they're trying to win over public opinion,
which then leads to the Oppenheimer Walkout, which was kind of brilliant.
>> Absolutely.
>> Yeah, they moved up to premiere by an hour to make sure that
the stars could walk the red carpet.
But then they waited for the stars to walk out and
then declared the strike because the stars wanted us walk out during the movie and
not be there for afterwards when they normally would have been.
To answer questions in that context, right.
And what did that do?
It created everyone talking about the Oppenheimer Walkout, which is good,
smart thinking when you're trying to win over public opinion.
Robert Downey Jr My God.
All these famous people.
I know those guys.
What are they complaining about?
We showed you the clip from Matt Damon.
Turns out not everyone is rich and famous like Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr.
It turns out a lot of them just need health care because they're working
actors, and it's really, really hard.
>> Right. >> That's how you do it.
There is a way to win on these things.
>> Remember, look, the Screen Actors Guild represents more than 150,000 actors,
and I think this is a common misconception all across the country.
When you hear actor, you think of people like Matt Damon.
You think of people who are big names in the industry.
But the vast majority of actors and actresses actually happen to be
people who work in the restaurant industry just to make ends meet and
hope for gigs that they audition for.
And they love the craft, but they're not super wealthy off of the acting they do.
There are very few actors who actually make it big time and
rake in tens of millions of dollars.
Now, with that said, I do want to get to the reaction from the studios.
So AMPTP said the studios offered the union the highest percentage increase
in guild minimums in 35 years and substantial increases in pension and
healthcare contribution caps, among other proposals.
Now, that's pretty vague, and we don't know the specifics, but
here's something that really did stand out to me.
And it was something that a friend of mine had kind of warned me about prior to this
being confirmed, but
now it seems to be confirmed the way they want to use AI in the industry.
So let's go to this tweet.
The studio's AI proposal to SAG-AFTRA included scanning
a background actor's likeness for one day's worth of pay and
then using their likeness forever in any form, without any pay or consent.
Meaning they get that one time payment and then it's gone.
It's over, right?
They can then use that actors or
actresses likeness forever without ever having to pay that individual again.
And let's also go to how some of the other executives have responded to this.
So, the Disney CEO, Bob Iger,
gave a pretty harsh critique of SAG and the WGA today on CNBC.
Specifically, Iger said, the labor situation is very disturbing to me.
Coming after the ravages of COVID he continued,
this is the worst time in the world to be adding to that disruption.
I understand any labor organization's desire to have its members to
be compensated fairly based on the work that they deliver, okay?
And then CNBC's David Faber said, the conclusion to be drawn from
Iger's comments was that the guilds are not being very realistic.
Iger responded, no, they're not.
And maybe we should consider Bob Iger's salary a little unrealistic,
given the complaints that we're hearing from the guild right now.
Iger collected $65 million from Disney in 2018 alone,
which is 1424 times the company's median employee salary.
Forbes placed Iger's net worth at around $690,000,000 in 2019.
He retired in 2020, but returned to Disney's helm in 2022 for
a cool target annual salary of $27 million with all bonuses.
On Wednesday, he signed a contract extension that grants him $4 million more
in possible bonuses, bringing the annual target to $31 million.
So, look, I give you that information because it shows you the disconnect and
the incredible wealth that blinds him to the reality that the vast majority of
actors here are facing, especially with the advancement of AI technology.
>> Yeah, so look, guys, I get why Iger salary is so high.
From a business perspective, he drove the Disney price stock price way up.
He takes a certain percentage of it happens with a lot of executives.
Having said that, you don't get to say that your actors and
writers are making too much when some of them can't even pay for health insurance.
And then pay yourself that kind of salary, so you can have one or the other,
pay yourself that kind of salary and pay all the actors and the writers, etc.
No problem, okay?
Everybody's boat is rising.
Okay, I'm good with it.
But you can't say I don't have money, and then you paid yourself all that money.
Look, let's talk about let's put up the last five years salaries for
the different executives.
And these numbers are eye popping.
They're out of control.
David Zaslov, the guy who earned it the least.
I'll tell you why in a second.
Nearly, what is that?
Jesus, $498,000,000 over the last five years?
>> Yes.
>> That is half a billion dollars for a guy who didn't create anything.
>> But, guys, what could he do?
I mean, what could these executives do?
I mean, they're living in poverty.
They can't afford to pay more.
>> Yeah, well, so let's keep going real quick.
Ari Emanuel is a giant agent, but probably top agent in Hollywood,
okay, $347,000,000.
Reed Hastings from Netflix 209,000,000.
Bob Iger, 195,000,000.
Sarandos from Netflix 192,000,000.
And Murdoch, of course, owns Fox Corp $175,000,000 over the last five years.
Okay, so those are monster numbers.
Look, I just got to say, Murdoch, you might hate them.
Iger, Hastings, Sarandos, but they've done some amazing things in their careers.
Zaslov is just like a random middle manager who wound
up having good political skills inside a company and getting to the top.
He barely created anything at all.
So these guys just [LAUGH] wiping off all of the money, right,
and then go, well, of course there's no money left.
That's because I paid myself $500 million.
That is not convincing.
Not 1% convincing.
Okay, now, the last part of this is super important.
The writers have been on strike for quite a while, and
now the actors have joined them.
But basically, the rumor it's not even really so
much rumor as discussions in Hollywood about strategy is that people think
that the studios are gonna hold out on the writers all the way through October.
And they're gonna try to, quote, bleed them out.
>> Yeah, I mean, there was an executive who, of course,
didn't have the courage to say this with their identity open to the public, but
this individual gave an anonymous quote.
I want to read it for you right now.
So the end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start
losing their apartments and losing their houses,
a studio executive told Deadline, acknowledging the cold as ice approach.
Several other sources reiterated the statement.
One insider called it a cruel but necessary evil.
>> No, not necessary.
What the actors are gonna do is super important,
because if they get a mid offer, obviously the negotiations are going to continue.
They can't do anything without the actors.
They can go for a while without the writers.
With, like, crappy scripts and bad stuff and reality shows and stuff like that.
Game shows, even then you'd need writers.
But they can patch it together, right?
But without actors, you can't do a movie.
You can't do a TV show.
So if the actors hold down and go, no,
we're with the writers and we're gonna stick with the writers.
Then the studios make the wrong gamble and they're gonna get hurt.
And eventually they're gonna get hurt bad enough that the stock price is gonna start
to go down, and then they're gonna start to panic about what?
Their own bonuses, okay.
>> Most important thing in the world, Cenk.
>> Exactly, the minute Zazlov starts to panic about his bonus is
the minute the writers have a shot at this, okay?
So the actors have now joined the writers.
So the writers have a fighter's chance.
>> Yeah. >> But if the actors make a deal and
the writers haven't, the writers are in a world of trouble.
And that's just the reality of it.
>> Well, you can help support SAG and the striking actors.
I reached out to my friend to see if there's any way to help, and so
she provided a list of things that could be helpful.
I want to read them to you right now.
You can join the picket line, you can donate supplies that includes food,
ordering pizzas, publicly show support, and
you can also purchase official SAG-AFTRA merchandise.
The other thing I wanted to just quickly point out is that there is a website that
you can contribute to.
It's basically like a strike fund.
And that's sagaftra.org.
And my friend also sent me Entertainmentcommunity.org as a website
you can go to to also contribute and help support them through the strike.
And I think you're right, Cenk.
I think that analysis is spot on.
I think the solidarity that the actors are showing with the writers is super
important.
It does help to uplift the striking writers.
I really hope they don't concede and agree to a crappy contract.
Let's just put it that way.
>> And I'll give you one last example here.
So just because I happen to be in media, and just randomly too,
I happen to know a bunch of actors, right?
A friend of mine who's a good friend, who we knew each other when we were
both struggling is dollar bill from billions, right?
So Kelly O'Coin, and he's in the Americans.
He's a great, great actor.
And so I give you him as an example because for and sorry,
Kelly, I didn't ask your permission.
So he struggled for a long time, right, and not struggling in a bad way.
He's doing Broadway, he's doing plays.
He's an actor.
He's a working actor.
But in terms of money, he was hurt, dog and I was hurt, and we were hurt together,
right?
So now he's doing all right now.
He's not mad Damon or anything, sorry again, Kelly [LAUGH].
He's got to be okay, excuse me.
>> What does it feel like under that bus?
>> I know, seriously, he's a great actor, right, but I'm just saying he
doesn't have a mansion in Beverly Hills or anything like that, but he's okay.
He's okay now.
He needed the help when he was coming up.
And so don't forget that for every great actor you see, whether it's Matt Damon or
Dollar Bill or any of these great actors that you love in your shows and
your movies, etc, that there was a giant stretch for most of them, a long stretch.
Decades of barely making the bills with extra work and
doing two, three different jobs, etc.
Those are the guys we need to help in this strike, so keep that in mind.