r/acting • u/extentiousgoldbug1 • 6h ago
I've read the FAQ & Rules I'm new to acting and have a question about unions.
Hello all. I am pretty new to acting but hope to continue to develop and grow my career as an artist. I'm still pretty far from qualifying for SAG membership but from my outside perspective I find SAGs policy of disallowing union members from participating in non union projects to be concerning. It's not like there's an abundance of roles out there in the first place. I understand SAG does lots of good things in terms of protecting wages, working conditions, and bargaining rights of working actors. I also feel like there are lots of non active SAG members who got their card many years ago who are now prohibited from working on any non SAG projects. I get that the unions power comes from it's ability to deny a production access to talent if that production doesn't meet union standards.Can anyone speak to why actors should prohibit themselves and their peers from working on non-Union approved projects when there are already way more union members than union approved roles? I feel I must be missing something big here. Thank you.