We Don’t Talk About Unions, No, No, No!

Once the disbelief and confusion of the Academy Awards Will Smith-Chris Roc slap debacle settled into my brain as real, I found myself understanding that I had witnessed an act of workplace violence.?Let me explain…

Working with colleagues at Azteca America TV, HITN TV, and MSBNC I learned that news and broadcast journalists are SAG-AFTRA union members. ?SAG-AFTRA, in fact, has often been a mainstay sponsor at National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) conventions to recruit and provide member support services to new and existing Latino journos. ?Once in the business, you learn SAG-AFTRA represents the privacy, safety, and fair compensation needs of its news and broadcast union members.

SAG-AFTRA is not just a conduit for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards for performance artists. It is a 160,000-strong union labor force between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to represent the combined interests of talent, artists, and production teams associated with entertainment and news production. ?To have a “SAG card” means you’ve “paid your dues” to the industry.

Union membership and support of union members – in any industry – is as American as apple pie and tacos.?Unions have been an integral part in establishing over 180 federal labor laws regulating workplace activities and employee safety for over 150 million workers nationwide.?From the United Farm Workers (UFW) to the AFL-CIO, unions exist to represent the well-being of America’s working class.

Which brings me to the 2022 Academy Awards.?

Yes, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Academy) award film and artistic merit “Academy Awards” – or “Oscars” as they are more popularly known – to film industry elite.?These industry elites range from multimillion dollar film productions to multimillion dollar-making actors.?But, these awards also recognize writers, music producers, production teams, and struggling entertainers that form the working class of SAG-AFTRA’s membership base.?These SAG-AFTRA members are also the “stage hands” that produce and televise the “Oscars” to a global audience.

Those of us that are familiar or trained in union-speak and federal labor laws understood that what we witnessed air at the 2022 Academy Awards involved union members involved in giving or receiving a physical strike in the presence of other union members, and what is by labor standards and regulations, a workplace environment for a staged televised production.

Beyond the rigmarole of jokes, awardees, and women’s hair loss, is a very real and palpable issue surrounding the violation of federal and state laws involving employee safety.?Yes, multimillionaires or working class, a physical act occurred in an industry production.?And, yes, this also means that production teams and executives stood by and failed to act during and after the assault between Oscar-winner Will Smith and Oscar host Chris Rock. ?

To be seen is how this one event will impact policies for SAG-AFTRA union members and the Academy’s bylaws on standards of conduct for awardees. ?It is also to be seen whether this one event will serve to strengthen federal and state laws on workplace violence issues; and, whether the Academy will be fined by the city, state, or federal government for compliance issues. ?

The entertainment and film industry will need to reckon with its unions over this one issue…for the protection of its members into the future. ?Perhaps the “Me Too”-era protections against workplace sexual harassment will also be further strengthened in the process to include physical assault of all forms.

Laws, unions, and slaps aside, there were numerous diversity gains during the Awards that deserve a “second wind” for the industry.?Three women, two of them African American, one an open-lesbian – Reginal Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes -- hosted the Awards show.?Ariana DeBose became the first Afro-Latina – and second Latina ever – to win an Oscar. DeBose also became the first openly-LGBT actor to win an Oscar.?The deaf and differently-abled community had an Oscar win with Coda, and Encanto (We don’t talk about Bruno, no, no, no!) won an Oscar for best animated feature that, by the way, also included the most diverse representation of “Latinidad” in Disney features to-date.

Will we see a re-adaptation of G.I. Jane to better tell the “Me Too” and gender inequalities of women in our armed forces??To be seen, but it would certainly be appropriate for our day and age, and there are a range of diverse women actors that would fit the role perfectly.

Noemi Lujan Perez is a public affairs professional with a niche in strategic diversity media and stakeholder relations. ?She is trained in legal compliance from the USC Gould School of Law.?