Combating Sexual Harassment and New Intimacy Coordinator Standards Announced

Our union’s daily work has always been guided by a strong belief that a member's paycheck and benefits should come with a workplace free of harassment and supported by our collective bargaining agreements and the law. So, we are pleased to unveil two initiatives that empower every member to help us create a safer environment on the job.  

A New Reporting Tool to Combat Sexual Harassment:
SAG-AFTRA Safe Place is a new reporting platform, available through the SAG-AFTRA member mobile app and at sagaftrasafeplace.org, that makes it easy for members to discreetly and securely report incidents of sexual harassment. 

This new tool gives everyone who works under a SAG-AFTRA contract flexibility in how they report sexual harassment, and it has been designed so users understand all of their options during every step of the reporting process. Users have several reporting options, including reporting anonymously or as a third party witness. 

In developing SAG-AFTRA Safe Place, we conducted a comprehensive review of member needs across all membership categories, and we engaged a diverse cross section of members to ensure the voices and needs of all communities were accounted for and addressed. Watch this short video introduction.

As pleased as we are to offer enhanced reporting, we know that success in our mission depends on preventing harassment to begin with. For many of our members, that means addressing the imbalances of power that can create unsafe or uncomfortable situations while working.  

New Standards for Intimacy Coordinators:
To this end, we’ve negotiated stronger contract provisions that provide protections for those performing intimate and highly exposed scenes, and we have also worked to build a robust presence on set for intimacy coordinators, who add an extra layer of advocacy on behalf of performers. Those efforts led to the creation of SAG-AFTRA’s “Standards and Protocols for the Use of Intimacy Coordinators,” which set up a framework for the use of professional, skilled intimacy coordinators. 

Building on this work, SAG-AFTRA has created the first-ever industrywide accreditation system for intimacy coordinator training and certification programs, in collaboration with the working community of intimacy coordinators, and we are establishing a registry of intimacy coordinators who meet our minimum standards and can thus reliably be expected to provide consistent, high-quality services. Read more about the guidelines HERE. 

These new standards will: 

• Create a system for reviewing and vetting of candidates and pre-registrants, with an added component of continuing education.
• Provide employers with a better way to identify qualified, experienced candidates for employment. 
• Help safely expand the number of experienced professionals to serve in this role nationwide.
• Allow interested candidates to identify qualified training programs to ensure consistent and quality intimacy coordination that reflects the successful work in the industry. 
• Help create a pipeline of diverse talent by building inclusion into accreditation requirements for training programs, including a combination of outreach and recruiting, mentorship, scholarships, affinity learning spaces and more.

SAG-AFTRA Safe Place and this next phase of our critical work to build and empower the intimacy coordinator profession are just two of the bold steps SAG-AFTRA has taken to fight sexual harassment and protect members. Read about our other initiatives in the Anti-Harassment Timeline.

There is still much work to be done and we will not rest, because no member is safe from harassment until every member is safe from harassment. 

Strength in unity, 

Gabrielle Carteris
President

David White
National Executive Director