Local President's Message

Aloha Brothers and Sisters,

Exciting news on the national front: After a 15-year effort by your union, Telenovela performers, including actors, guest stars, dancers and stunt workers at the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo overwhelmingly voted to unionize with SAG-AFTRA. This brings to a close a protracted dispute between our union and NBCUniversal, the owner of the network. The balloting process began Feb. 7 and successfully concluded four weeks later with 81 percent of eligible voters choosing to unionize.

Miami-based Telemundo, which was acquired by NBCUniversal in 2001, is the largest employer of Spanish-language performers in the United States, providing work for hundreds of actors on its programs. SAG-AFTA argued that NBCUniversal maintained a double standard by providing fair pay and benefits to its English-language performers, while denying the same rights to Spanish-language performers.

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This item was originally featured in the April 2017 local newsletter.