Equity says SAG-AFTRA is violating longstanding union practice by encroaching on theaters with which it has contracts. The union contends that, because SAG-AFTRA pays daily instead of weekly, and because the stage actors don’t earn credit toward Equity insurance, actors have lost $600,000 in earnings and $150,000 in employer contributions to the embattled Equity-League Health Fund. “It doesn’t help actors and stage managers, and it doesn’t help the labor movement. “Obviously live performance has been hit harder than anybody, and I understand that there’s a real feeling that they’re fighting for their life,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief operating officer. Nonetheless Equity says that since March it has reached agreements permitting its members to work on 249 “remote shows.”

Source: New York Times October 07, 2020 22:30 UTC