How To Taft-Hartley Yourself | Acting Resource Guru - YouTube

Happy Tuesday today, we're going to talk about  how to Taft-Hartley yourself and become a SAG  

AFTRA. We're talking about how to join SAG AFTRA  today, because we had a question from a member  

of our community. Her name is Karina, and she  asks, what are the ways to become eligible to  

join the union? Is it only through collecting  three union vouchers through extra work or are  

there some other ways now that's a great  question because there are actually three  

ways to join SAG AFTRA and the first one  is the one that you mentioned you Karina,

and it's a collect three background  vouchers. Occasionally a production  

will grant a non union actor, a union  background voucher. Now sometimes the  

Actors working under harsh conditions, or maybe  they're performing a background role that would  

traditionally go to union actor. In any  case, it's kind of rare. And it's up to  

the discretion of the assistant director  on set. So once that happens three times.

So once you have three background vouchers  that are union representing three days worked,  

you were eligible to join SAG AFTRA. Now  the second way to join the union is to be  

a member of one of SAG AFTRA sister unions. And  those are equity act tra AGMA. And AGMA. Now,  

if you are a member of one of  these unions and you've been  

a member for a year and worked as a  principal under a principal contract,

at least once during that year, you were  eligible to join SAG AFTRA. Now the third  

way is this mysterious Taft Hartley. So what  is a Taft Hartley? Now SAG AFTRA has a rule  

it's called the Taft Hartley act actually,  and allows producers of SAG productions  

to hire nonunion actors, to perform a role  that they can't find a union actor to fill. 

So that actor needs to have a skill or a quality  that is essential to that role. And they can't  

have been able to find a union actor do that role.  Now that allows producers of television or film,  

and more often commercials to hire  nonunion actors and pay a fee and  

be able to have that nonunion actor in  the SAG production. And then that union,

or then that actor becomes union eligible.  Now with the prevalence of new media,  

SAC has created a new media contract and that  has allowed for sort of a do it yourself way  

to get a Taft Hartley. Now I'm not going to  jump in and become a television producer,  

right? Like I'm not going to just produce a TV  show, but I could produce a new media project.

I could write a sketch or a web series or some  sort of content for new media and become a SAG  

producer. All I have to do is sign up as a  SAG signatory and the budget requirements  

are a lot lower. We can pay Actors deferred  or minimal pay, and we can become content  

creators who are SAG. And so that's the way  that you can actually Taft-Hartley yourself.

You become a producer of new media content  and you become a SAG signatory. So how do  

you do this? You'll go to OSA dot SAG  aftra.org and create a log in for your  

production. SAG will send you a contract to be  filled out and sent back, and then you'll get  

a big packet full of information. You'll  need to fill out preproduction paperwork.

You'll need to fill out production paperwork.  You'll need to do post production paperwork.  

And all of this is while you're doing the  project right now, there are some rules. So  

one is that you need to have at least one SAG  AFTRA actor on the production, right? You can  

have tartly all the rest of the actors who are non  union, but you need to have one SAG AFTRA actor.

Now just as with a regular Taft-Hartley, you  also need to provide justification for why  

you're hiring nonunion actors to perform your  roles. So my advice is to be sincere and don't  

lie about the reasons. And the, my third piece  of advice would be to really use the resources  

that SAG, you may have to ask for help if  you're confused throughout this process,

but they are extremely helpful and will  absolutely guide you through. You'll receive a  

representative when you sign up as a signatory,  and that person is your go to resource for any  

questions or problems that you have. Now, once  you fill out your post production paperwork,  

after the shoot and send that in, it may take a  while for you to get the Taft-Hartley paperwork,

just be patient, and it'll come through and  you have effectively taken this process into  

your own hands, become a producer, created  content, which is a great learning experience  

in and of itself. And now you're eligible  to join the union. Now, one final word of  

caution. I want you to really think before  you make the decision to join the union,

joining SAG AFTRA is not for everybody at every  stage in their careers. You need to think about  

a lot of things like whether you can compete with  other SAG AFTRA Actors on there, because once you  

joined the union, you can't do any non union work.  So if you still need to boost your resume with  

nonunion worker, you'd still need experience. You  might want to think about that before you join.

So I would recommend checking out our video  on things to think about before you joined  

SAG AFTRA and that'll help you make that  decision. Now, if you love this content,  

please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube  channel by clicking there and share this  

video with your friends. And I want to hear  from you. I want to hear what option to join.

SAG AFTRA sounds the most appealing to you.  

And when you're going to take  action, I'll see you next week.