Dispatches From The Picket Lines: Transportation Workers Rally With Striking Actors At NBCU In Manhattan

This is Day 83 of the SAG-AFTRA strike . The language was salty but the mood was upbeat at a union rally in Midtown Manhattan by striking actors and their supporters from the 150,000-member Transportation Workers Union. With talks between the actors union and the production studios paused until Wednesday , the crowd at SAG-AFTRA ’s solidarity picket with the TWU filled two lanes of the street outside NBCUniversal headquarters and made a sometimes NSFW din that could be heard for blocks.

Related Stories Guilds SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreements: Full List Of Movies And TV Series Breaking News Dispatches From The Picket Line: Actors Including Jon Cryer Are “Cautiously Optimistic” As Talks Restart Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, one of the rally speakers, dropped an F-bomb in remarks calling for all working Americans to receive a livable wage and health care. “And since our corrupt Congress won’t give that to us, we got a f*ckin’ union,” he said to cheers.

But it was TWU chief John Samuelson who really let fly, railing at “p*ick bosses” in a pugilistic speech that compared contract negotiations to fist fighting. “And this is how you win a fight,” Samuelson said. “You keep throwing punches viciously, relentlessly, endlessly until you land one that decks the boss.

That’s how you do it. ” SPOTTED: Stephen Lang, Jill Hennessy, Megan Boone among demonstrators at the SAG-AFTRA/Transport Workers Union rally in NYC today #SAGAFTRAStrong 📸 Sean Piccoli/Deadline pic. twitter.

com/3jMwsQyVaj — Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) October 3, 2023 SAG-AFTRA leaders in New York called off their usual daily pickets at three other locations to boost turnout at a rally that was attended by actors, writers, stagehands and rank-and-file TWU members — a workforce ranging from flight attendants and bus drivers to New York’s Citi Bike ride-share maintenance crews. With the writers strike over and the actors strike in its 83rd day, SAG-AFTRA’s New York local executive director, Rebecca Damon, told the crowd, “I would much rather our staff was visiting you on a film set. ” But the strike would continue, Damon said, “until we have the deal — a deal that SAG-AFTRA members deserve.

” (WATCH) ‘Avatar’ franchise actor Stephen Lang gives a fiery speech to protestors gathered outside 30 Rock today in NYC during the SAG-AFTRA/Transport Workers Union rally: ❝Union forever!❞ #SAGAFTRAStrong pic. twitter. com/WmuKyVlkXu — Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) October 3, 2023 On the podium with Damon were actors including Stephen Lang , Jill Hennessy, Megan Boone, Rosemary Harris and Bill Irwin.

Lang took a turn at the microphone and welcomed “all you makers of good trouble,” a phrase popularized by the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. He also congratulated the Writers Guild for its “great success” in winning a contract after 148 days on strike. “Well done, scribes,” Lang said, adding, “It’s our turn at the table now, and we want to get back to work.

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