Labor
No End In Sight: Ongoing Video Game Strike Expands
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Voice actors and performers who initiated an October strike, demanding that 11 video game companies increase their residual compensation, received critical support Friday from a competing union.
The Actors Equity Association (AEA) which represents 50,000 actors and stage managers, threw its support behind SAG-AFTRA, and told its members to not accept voice-over work or performance capture work from the 11 companies that the voice actors are protesting.
“Equity members are reminded that they cannot accept work from these employers, and they should contact Equity immediately if they are offered any such employment,” AEA Executive Director Mary McColl said.
SAG-AFTRA only represents 25 percent of the performers in the market, meaning that support from unions representing member of the industry can increase the pressure on the companies to reach a new agreement with favorable terms. The actors are also fighting for vocal stress therapy, stunt coordinators and transparency from the companies on the work they are performing.
The board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), voted to strike if a new contract wasn’t reached by Oct. 21. SAG-AFTRA represents voice actors for video game characters, motion-capture actors who record movements that are used to animate characters and their movements, as well as actors who appear in video game trailers and stunt artists for specific scenes within a game.
The strike came after a year and a half of unsuccessful negotiations and the expiration of its existing labor contract in late 2014. Since late October, members have picketed outside of three major studios. The members have protested outside of Electronic Arts, WB Games and Insomniac.
The union contends that since the video game industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, its actors should be entitled to residual compensation and royalties. SAG-AFTRA is also pushing for improved working conditions for its voice actors and stunt performers, requesting vocal stress teachers and stunt coordinators be present and available.
Since the strike kicked off, little progress has been made between the two parties. The union is asking the companies to pay more upfront, and then pay secondary compensation if the video game is successful. The companies are dismissing the proposal, calling the idea of “contingent fee option” as “too onerous.”
“It is inexplicable that SAG-AFTRA will not permit a democratic vote on a contract that currently offers its members an immediate 9% wage increase and Additional Compensation of up to $950 per game,” Scott Witlin, Chief Negotiator for Video Game Companies, said in an email to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “How will the members feel when they lose that offer because SAG-AFTRA did not permit a timely ratification?”
The union is striking eleven specific video game brands: Warner Bros.; EA; Activision Publishing; Blindlight; Corps of Discovery Films; Disney Character Voices, Inc.; Formosa Interactive, LLC; Interactive Associates; Take 2 Interactive Software; and VoiceWorks Productions.
Statements from both sides have shown just how far apart they are from an agreement.
“Through many months of bargaining with interactive employers, we have not reached a fair agreement covering SAG-AFTRA performers working in video games, often the most popular games in the world,” SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris argued in a statement. “A strike is not to be entered into lightly, but when the employers leave us with no recourse, we must stand firm for our members.”
The video game industry responded, at the time, with a statement from the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg LLP, claiming that agreements were negotiated in good faith.
The video game industry was frustrated with the union’s public airings of private negotiations. “We are deeply disappointed to learn today of the Union’s threatened strike and its unilateral violation of the mutually agreed upon ‘news black-out’ on negotiation discussions,” a lawyer representing the industry previously said.
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