Burbank mayor and actor on Hollywood strikes: ‘There’s going to be a break soon' | ABCNL

closer look at the writers and actors

strikes simultaneously gripping

Hollywood right now Burbank California

mayor Constantine Anthony is leading the

city at Ground Zero for these strikes

he's an actor he's a sag after a member

himself thank you so much for joining us

we really appreciate your time thank you

appreciate being here listen this is a

busy time for you clearly it's also a

toasty time out here in California and

we want to talk with you first maybe as

a member of the actors Union if we can

right we've covered a lot of the biggest

issues that we're seeing here we're

talking about AI we're talking about

residuals but the studios say they have

offered up a historic pay increase

what's your response to that

sure that's uh that's what the studios

say

um I've been a sag member since 2006 so

I was on the 0708 strike lines and we

were fighting for the same stuff then

back then it was we want a portion of

DVD and Blu-ray sales and they were

refusing to give it to us

um they eventually capitulated and now

we've moved on to streaming

um right now most working actors do not

make any money off of the streaming

services the writers don't the directors

don't anybody who's working above the

line they put in their labor they create

all these this wonderful content and

then they're just not getting that pay

back to them and that's what you're

seeing as an actor but when we talk to

you as a mayor there are businesses that

are not you know involved in making the

movies but they support the people that

do we're talking about the coffee shops

the flower shops the dry cleaners they

are suffering what are you seeing as a

mayor so this is the secondary economy

that I've been talking about for weeks

now we have dry cleaners we have

restaurants we have auto repair shops

daycare centers that are just empty

because the people who normally work in

the studios simply aren't working they

don't have any pay to facilitate the

economic cycling of money in the local

economy but further from that I think

there's a big change from this strike

versus the 115 years ago because the

local industry knows that if the writers

if the actors if the people working in

the industry get better pay then that

means there's more money in their pocket

and they will be spending that locally

you're also getting a lot of support

from other labor unions we're hearing

this is the summer of strikes right but

we're seeing you know some of LAUSD the

teachers union the service workers the

hotel workers coming out and supporting

you and in a way that sort of highlights

what this strike is really about right

this is about the working actor not the

giant mega Stars yeah and I want people

back at home who maybe don't live in New

York or L.A they're struggling to put

food on their table and and keep a roof

over their head why is it important for

them to see you know George Clooney and

and Tom Cruise out on the strike lines

well we're trying to bring notice to all

of the executives all of these giant

corporations that we aren't going to

take it anymore and you shouldn't either

UPS is going on strike Starbucks Amazon

it's a movement

let's talk about this we've seen in

neighboring Los Angeles neighboring to

us here in Burbank the studios are

allegedly trimming trees to reduce the

shade to make it a little bit harder for

picketers there's certain things that

are allegedly going on like that

accusations across the board but as a

mayor in your position how do you

straddle the line between supporting the

picketers supporting sag-aftra but also

supporting the biggest Employers in your

city so in Burbank we have a huge

economic impacts

um with what's going on with the studios

obviously Warner Brothers and Disney we

have Nickelodeon we have Cartoon Network

they're all major Employers in the city

and we do very well we're actually a

very pro-business City and we work with

all of our big studios to make sure they

have the economic growth that they need

but at the end of the day the voters

they're the members who work in those

Studios they're wga and sag and ayatsi

members so they put me in this seat and

so for me I have to be able to balance

that and we have to be able to protect

the people that are out there are doing

their first amendment picketing and

where do we go from here what what is do

we is there an end in sight do you think

the last strike in 0708 lasted just over

100 days

the strikes back in 1960 where it was a

dual strike were over three months as

well

we're closing in on that we're uh just

past day 80. so we think there's going

to be a break soon

um if you've noticed a lot of these big

streaming companies their stock has

taken a huge hit and I can't imagine I

can't imagine that they would go any

further well mayor Anthony thank you so

much for joining us we really appreciate

your time tonight all right

also we have a quick note for our

viewers ABC's parent company Disney is a

member of the alliance of motion picture

and television producers negotiating

with sagathra and the wga also late

today the alliance issued a statement

saying that they've offered seg after

members more than a billion dollars in

wage and other compensation increases

and unprecedented protections against AI

they also called sags claims about

negotiations misleading

hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here

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