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Disney CEO Bob Iger recently sat down with CNBC for an interview during which he shared his views on the SAG-AFTRA strike.
“It’s very disturbing to me. We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from COVID which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption,” Iger said in that interview.
“I understand any labour organization’s desire to work on behalf of its members to get the most compensation and be compensated fairly based on the value that they deliver,” Iger continued, but chided the union for setting goals he characterized as unrealistic.
“There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic,” he said of striking actors. “And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”
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Those comments did not sit well with Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA.
“I found them terribly repugnant and out of touch,” Drescher told Variety of Iger’s words.
“Positively tone deaf. I don’t think it served him well,” she continued.
“If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this, because it’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground with hard working people that don’t make anywhere near the salary he is making,” Drescher added. “High seven figures, eight figures, this is crazy money that they make, and they don’t care if they’re land barons of a medieval time.”
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Drescher’s response to Iger’s interview reiterate the views she shared in an incendiary speech she gave when announcing the union’s intentions to strike.
“We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher said.
“I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How [the studios] plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs,” she added. “It is disgusting. Shame on them.”
President of SAG-AFTRA Fran Drescher’s speech against the AMPTP was fantastic. A historical day. pic.twitter.com/iTzQY7xxtB
— Todd Spence (@Todd_Spence) July 13, 2023