How are the WGA and SAG strikes affecting animal actors?
On 7/14/23, SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild), went on strike after their contract labor dispute stalled in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
This coincides with the WGA (Writers Guild of America) strike in a series of broader Hollywood labor disputes which has caused massive financial hardship to the entire entertainment industry.
Most people think that the only ones affected by the SAG and WGA strikes are actors and writers. However, nothing can be further from the truth.
What most people do not realize; since the writers and actors are on strike- entire projects come to a full stop. There is no way for productions to continue without the creators or actors. Which means entire crews on those projects are now out of work as well-from camera crew, script supervisors, prop departments, set dressing, wardrobe, HMU, teachers, craft service to name just a few-and of course ALL the vendors that service productions; catering, prop houses, lighting, equipment rentals and of course professionally trained animal actors and their suppliers.
Although the animal trainers (Teamsters 399) are not on strike- our work has also come to almost a complete stand still as well.
Since animal actors and their trainers are also a part of the projects crews they are effected by these strikes like the rest of the crews.
Unlike other trades/professionals in our industry (painters contractors, teachers, caterers, etc)-animal trainers cannot just ‘get another job’ and wait out the strike negotiations. There aren’t any other lines of work for say…a trained coyote, owl or raccoon that they can perform. And unlike other professions, if a trainer were to find other work (like Uber, waiting tables, etc) that would make it extremely difficult to continue to properly care for our animal family. Our responsibilities to our animals do not change.
As well, our bills do not change. And often times, they increase. Below are some of the basic things our animals need everyday whether there are production jobs to go on, or not;
- Everyday care (Enclosure maintenance, grooming, walks, etc). This is very specialized work!
- Handling (socializing, daily checks for health, weight, checking for any changes, etc).
- Feeding-diet preparation includes cutting and measuring fruits/veggies, weighing meat, making individual diets etc and takes hours every morning
- Enrichment; we prepare every animals’ daily diets into multiple packages that our keepers hide and place all around their enclosures for optimum sensory stimulation
- Training; even when we do not have shows to work on-our animals need to be worked, handled and trained. Not only to keep them sharp but also because it is important for their mental and physical well being. Our animals look forward to and thrive on training.
- Veterinary care; Let’s face it-keeping animals is a big responsibility. Proper veterinary care is often unexpected and sudden-whether we are working or not, when an animal in our care needs to see a vet, he sees the vet. And anyone who has a pet knows vet care can be expensive.
- Housing; We still need to pay for our animals housing, whether we are working or not. Rents/mortgage/DWP expenses are the same regardless of our work status
And of course-our keepers and trainers have bills they need to pay as well.
I have heard that these strikes may last until 2024. Sadly, I think that many companies in our industry will not make it. We know of several trainers (and many other industry workers) that are taking early retirement, or even changing their careers entirely.
We have been fortunate in that we have a had some meat and produce donations and lucky enough to still have other branches of our work (music videos, photo shoots, commercials, youtube and tik toc trickling in -so we are currently not at risk of closing-but there are other types of crew and vendors that may not be as lucky.
I was recently interviewed about the strikes by Steve Chiotakis for KCRW. You can listen to that interview here!
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/housing-sag-wga/animal-actors
*And as an update-the writers have come to an agreement that they are very happy with-too bad the AMPTP did not come to the bargaining table with this offer months ago. Let’s hope that the SAG contract negotiations will follow with an acceptable contract soon, as well!