Soap stars to continue working if SAG-AFTRA goes on strike

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https://deadline.com/2023/06/soaps-a...en-1235418533/

By Nellie Andreeva

June 16, 2023 1:46pm

The moment the WGA strike started at 12:01 a.m. on May 2, all late-night shows went dark. Many presume that the same is bound to happen with daytime dramas if SAG-AFTRA goes on strike July 1 (or later), as those series, similarly, are in continuous, year-round production.

However, SAG-AFTRA’s film and TV contract, which expires June 30, does not apply to SAG-AFTRA members working on soaps. It means those cast members will have to continue to work even if their guild goes on strike after the membership voted overwhelmingly for strike authorization ahead of SAG-AFTRA’s current negotiations with the the studios’ collective bargaining representative the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. And, with the four daytime dramas — The Young and the Restless (CBS), The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS), Days Of Our Lives (Peacock) and General Hospital (ABC) — continuing to churn out scripts amid the WGA strike using fi-core and other non-member writers, those shows appear positioned to continue production without interruption for the foreseeable future.

Soap actors are employed under the SAG-AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting (aka Network Code). It is different than the film and TV collective bargaining agreement that SAG-AFTRA is currently negotiating with the AMPTP. Negotiated between SAG-AFTRA and the Big 4 broadcast networks as well as other producers, the National Code covers soaps as well as morning news shows, talk shows, variety, reality, game shows, sports and promotional announcements. The current Code agreement, reached a year ago, goes through July 2024.

Daytime soaps tape well in advance, which allowed the shows to stay in originals for weeks after Covid shut down all Hollywood production in March 2020. For instance, Days of Our Lives is six months ahead.

In addition to the episode stockpile, the series remain in production and continue to generate new scripts. They are penned largely by financial core (fi-core) writers, who have resigned their WGA membership while benefiting from the guild’s contracts with the studios. Others, such as producers, assistants and executives, also are involved in writing in some cases.

During the 2007-08 WGA strike, a total of 28 writers went fi-core per the guild; almost all of them worked on daytime dramas. There were eight soaps at the time that kept going during the work stoppage.

The four current daytime soaps are all in production and currently working on new scripts, I hear.

Some of the dozens of soap writers who claimed fi-core status in 2007-2008 remain active. Additionally, the WGA has listed four writers who have gone fi-core this year, three of whom — Sheri Anderson, Michael Minnis and Mark Pinciotti — are daytime scribes. (The fourth is feature writer Matthew Sand.)

“The shows don’t stop,” daytime veteran Ron Carlivati, head writer on Days of Our Lives and a striking WGA member, said in an interview from the picket lines a month ago. “They replaced us in 2007 when I worked at One Life to Live, and I can only assume they’re replacing us right now. I’m being replaced on day one by other people.” He told Vulture that DOOL was going to run out of scripts he and his team had written before the strike “in a few weeks.”

After the strike is over, returning WGA soap writers will have to adjust their storytelling to accommodate the plot developments introduced during their absence.

Amid the nail-biting final days of SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP negotiations, with a potential strike looming, all daytime dramas except The Young and the Restless are taking extended summer breaks; The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital are going on monthlong production hiatus in July, while Days of Our Lives‘ three-week hiatus starts this weekend, I hear. Regardless of what happens between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP, the casts will be expected to report back to work once those breaks are over.