Members Join SAG-AFTRA Videogame Performers on the Picket Line

Dozens of WGAW members and staff in blue union shirts joined their SAG-AFTRA siblings on the Warner Bros. picket line in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA videogame performers who are demanding a better contract. Many carried signs that read “WGA Supports SAG-AFTRA.” The actors responded with chants of “We love the WGA!”

“As we learned last year, the more people we can bring out and the more support we can all give each other, then the better off we’ll be and the quicker we’ll get the deals we deserve,” said Tyler Ruggeri, a WGAW member and strike captain during the 2023 WGA strike who attended the SAG-AFTRA August 1 rally at Warner Bros.

Workers represented by SAG-AFTRA who perform in videogames went on strike July 26 against all videogame companies signed to the Interactive Media Agreement. The primary issue is the studios’ use of artificial intelligence in videogame creation. 

SAG-AFTRA performers provide dialogue or stop-motion work for interactive media. Studios can store and possibly use or manipulate that work elsewhere without additional compensation. 

The vote to strike comes after more than a year and a half of negotiations without a deal. According to the SAG-AFTRA strike website, although they’ve reached agreements on many vital issues, the employers refuse to affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by the contract against the use of AI.

“We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.

On July 30, the WGAW joined other entertainment unions, including the American Federation of Musicians, IATSE, Teamsters and the Directors Guild of America, in issuing a statement of solidarity.

“These employers—who generate billions of dollars in annual profit from 3.2 billion active gamers worldwide—failed to recognize the rights of workers to be protected against the unconstrained rise of artificial intelligence,” the statement says. “These workers have made the difficult choice to strike as they fight for basic AI protections, and we stand with them in solidarity.”

A common theme among WGAW members walking the line at Warner Bros., was last year’s solidarity, which motivated them to repay the favor.

Jimmy Blackmon has been a WGAW member since 2021, and the summer of 2023 was his first strike experience. He said it changed him.

“Getting everybody out on the streets and seeing each other as human beings definitely lit a fire in a way that wasn’t there before,” Blackmon said. “I would have considered myself a pro-union, pro-Guild person, but I wouldn’t have necessarily gotten into my car and driven to Burbank before last summer.”

WGAW member Omaira Galarza. Photo by Moises Marquez

“I think it’s important that we all support each other's causes and understand what everyone’s fighting for,” agreed WGAW member Omaira Galarza. “SAG-AFTRA supported us during our long hard strike, so I want to be here to support them.” 

WGAW Board member Rob Forman pointed out that the solidarity among the entertainment unions helps at the bargaining table.

“Companies seeing that they can’t divide labor against each other makes them, in an ideal world, less likely to stall out and actually come to the bargaining table in good faith knowing that they can’t separate workers from other workers,” he said.

Former WGAW Board member Liz Hsiao Lan Alper compared the solidarity to the classic ‘80s cartoon and toy franchise Voltron, in which the disparate parts of the entertainment industry come together as a stronger, unified entity.

“It’s stronger together because, literally, divided we fall,” Alper said.