Why the hell would a union give away its only leverage?
Preventing games started in under a year and all new games is still a big portion of leverage, so it didn’t give away “it’s only leverage”.
It was probably negotiated so that any companies that had years and $50+ million invested into a game wouldn’t go bankrupt or have to lay off 100 people due to a strike.
Really, it seems fair. Everyone involved in current production games already signed and agreed to contracts, and invested a lot of work. This strike is a small percentage of all the employees involved with making a game. Causing them all to potentially lose all of their work they’ve put over a year into would be closer to extortion than contract negotiating.
My initial question reading this was, do SAG-AFTRA actors working on movies have similar exemptions - a movie started over a year before a strike is called is exempted from said strike?
From the article is says these terms were inherited from legacy agreements prior to SAG and AFTRA merging so it may just be specific to video games.
What really caught my attention was at the end of the article it states union members can strike in solidarity and cannot be retaliated for doing so.
So a second question is raised, if the members are still allowed to strike in solidarity and in THEORY can’t be punished for doing so how is GTA6 really exempt from the strike then IF they are using SAG-AFTRA members?
I think it would be better to state there is no GUARANTEE that actors working on GTA6 will strike due to previously negotiated contracts, but that wording makes them sound more like scabs whereas putting the emphasis on the contract exemption makes it sound like they are obligated to keep working.
So a second question is raised, if the members are still allowed to strike in solidarity and in THEORY can’t be punished for doing so how is GTA6 really exempt from the strike then IF they are using SAG-AFTRA members?
Members striking in solidarity probably aren’t eligible for any union assistance. During a strike there are programs in place for helping members with some bills, etc. that would not be available. This is one of the things that Union dues usually go towards, having a financial war chest saved for when strikes are necessary.
I never considered or thought about union assistance nor the possibility it would be prohibited. It would have been nice for the article to explain in more detail how the exemption works.
