Posts tagged Duncan Crabtree-Ireland
SAG-AFTRA Reaches Tentative Contract Deal With Video Game Companies After Nearly a Year on Strike
June 11, 2025 // With the strike, the union took a stand against proposed AI terms that leaders claimed would have allowed companies to undercut members and their position in the workplace.
Fran Drescher Says George Clooney, Et. Al Proposal To Lift SAG-AFTRA Dues Cap Wouldn’t Be Legal
October 20, 2023 // Drescher outlined why the proposal wouldn’t work. “We are a federally regulated labor union and the only contributions that can go into our pension and health funds must be from the employer. So what we are fighting for in terms of benefits has to remain in this contract.”
Longtime Union Leader Steps Fully Into Hollywood’s Spotlight
October 2, 2023 // The dual strikes have been devastating financially, with more than 100,000 behind-the-scenes workers like location scouts, makeup artists and lighting technicians out of work. The California economy has lost an estimated $5 billion. Major studios like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global have seen their stock prices drop. Analysts have estimated that the global box office will lose as much as $1.6 billion in ticket sales because of movies whose releases were pushed back to next year. Mr. Crabtree-Ireland joined SAG-AFTRA in 2000, a Georgetown graduate with a law degree from the University of California, Davis, who spent the first two years of his career in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He rose quickly at the union, first to general counsel, then adding chief operating officer to his title. In 2021, he was named national executive director and chief negotiator, a job that pays $989,700 annually.
SAG-AFTRA and Producers Agree to Two-Week Contract Extension for Continued Negotiations
July 5, 2023 // “While it seems like a lot of SAG members want to join the WGA, at the end of the day, most want to continue to work,” Theresa Stevenson, an arbitrator in Michigan who has helped settled union disputes and strikes in the past, told the Globe. “While this does affect A-list stars, it also affects so many more smaller actors and bit parts and commercial work and so many others. The majority with the SAG card simply can’t afford a strike and just want to work to live or, in some cases, have supplementary income.” “SAG knows this, and that’s why negotiations are continuing. Most members really do just want a deal and don’t want to dig in for a strike lasting months like the WGA. They go on strike, then LA and other big acting towns are going to see a flood of new applicants going on the job market for temp or part-time work, and that means economic disruption, especially when, after the theoretical strike is over, they all pull out. We see this happen in many entertainment and non-entertainment related strikes, and LA and California really doesn’t need more economic uncertainty right now.”
Tech Layoffs Threaten Unions’ Plan to Draw White-Collar Workers
January 18, 2023 // Some 500 technology companies have axed nearly 100,000 workers since last October, according to Layoffs.fyi, a public database of tech layoffs. Amazon this month announced it would cut 18,000 jobs, and on the same day, cloud computing company Salesforce and the online video-sharing service Vimeo said they would slash 10% and 11% of their staffs, respectively. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, said in November it would eliminate 11,000 jobs—about 13% of its staff. Those reductions in force don’t bode well for unions that have increasingly funneled resources into tech organizing, which was, until recently, seen as an ever-growing pool of potential members. The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, last year raised membership fees for the first time in two decades, hoping to raise $10 million a year for new organizing. Union leaders this month flocked to Las Vegas for the CES technology conference, set on understanding how the latest innovations in artificial intelligence could disrupt their industries.