Wilson Cruz Says Negotiations Between AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA Took Longer Than It Should Have

Wilson Cruz is setting the record straight claiming that the SAG-AFTRA strike took longer than it needed to really be.

In a conversation with What’s Trending at the OUT100, the Star-Trek alum let many know that the entire strike should have been handled with more urgency and could have been avoided.

Wilson emphasized,“I mean you know, that strike was 118 days. It was empowering to be a part of a union to be asking what for it deservers. Im really proud of our negotiating committee that asked for what it could. We set up a structure that hopefully we can build on from here on out.”

Wilson has been on the frontlines of the movement in places like New York City.

Cruz’s downtime on screen comes as he has stepped into a new role with GLSEN, which provides programs and resources to transform K-12 educational systems on local and national levels for LGBTQ+ students. 

The actor also went on to thank all of those who supported actors in this time of need but also identified the importance of supporting the entertainment business.

He noted, “I’m ready to go back to work. We’re all ready. The blast radius of this strike were enormous. A lot of people affected by this strike weren’t even actors. The dry cleaners, the restaurants, the crew members, the publicists. What would we do without them? There was a lot of people who supported us.”

Cruz specifically mentioned that the strike could have been avoided entirely if the studios had put aside the time to address needs of talent.

“This could have been done the next day,” stated. “Honestly, those media companies lost hundreds of millions of dollars, for what? They could of used those hundreds of millions of dollars to actually give us what we asked for.” 

The current SAG-AFTRA package as of now is ‘valued at more than one billion dollars in new wages and benefit plan funding.’ More compensation information from the deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers came several hours after the SAG-AFTRA National Board voted 86% to approve it. 

The 80-page summary of the full agreement has not been public but will go to eligible members of the guild on November 13th. Ratification voting on the agreement stars November 14th and runs until the first week of December for the nearly 160,000 members of the guild.