Actors receive payments called residuals when shows they were in are repeated over time. This makes for some smooth income in a rather choppy business.
How did they get this from the studio bosses who aren't too interested in handing over money?
Ronald Reagan lead a shutdown strike on the Screen Actors Guild in 1960 to secure those payments, unprecedented before that. He also got a health care plan and pension plan for actors out of the deal.
He said at one point that he was ""trying to negotiate for the right to negotiate."
It seems so reminiscent of what is going on in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan today.
Worth remembering when GOP and Tea Partiers attack union rights. Tell them that Ronald Reagan would have been on the Union's side.
http://www.theatlantic.com/...