SAG-AFTRA Hit With Over 100 Covid Vaccine Mandate Suits By Members; “Claims Are Without Merit,” Guild Says

Dominic Patten

7 December 2023 at 5:09 pm·3-min read

Hollywood’s vaccine mandates are gone, but as new legal actions filed today against SAG-AFTRA make clear, the battle over the Covid-19 protection is far from over.

Over 100 individual suits placed in the LA Superior Court docket Thursday claim the Guild threw members under corporate buses during the height of the pandemic, essentially linking arms with the studios to require vaccinations to work.

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“While Defendants are Plaintiff’s Union representatives, SAG-AFTRA members had a right to expect that its Union would protect them, negotiate with the studios, producers and other hiring officials on their behalf to prevent prejudicial treatment for exerting their philosophical, religious, medical or disability-based reason for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine,” says stuntman and Guild member Dorian Kingi in his jury trial seeking filing today (read it here).

Kingi’s action is one of 103 complaints filed by the firm of Gerald Fox Law this week.

“Adding insult to injury, assuming SAG-AFTRA were a public/government and not private actor, similar to California law which requires students attending public or private school be vaccinated against certain named and identified infectious diseases, SAG-AFTRA was allowing its signatories (production companies/studios) to forcibly impose vaccination requirements and mandates in exchange for a Union Member’s ability to work, receive an audition, maintain management, maintain an agent, work with talent agencies, etc,” adds the 21-page suit for breach of fiduciary duty negligence, and four other claims. “Thus, SAG-AFTRA Members were forced to choose between their financial livelihood, breaking the law to obtain a falsified vaccination card or adhering to the acceptance of a foreign, not yet CDC approved, vaccine and boosters in their bodies against their will.”

The suits are looking for a plethora of damages and injunctive relief. They also want court orders for a full accounting and “compelling SAG-AFTRA as the fiduciary to Plaintiff and found to have breached their fiduciary duties to Plaintiff to restore all losses to Plaintiff which resulted from the breaches of fiduciary duty or by virtue of liability.”

SAG-AFTRA say: been there, done that, going there again.

“The claims are without merit and SAG-AFTRA will seek their dismissal,” spokesperson for the 160,000-strong Guild responded to Deadline today. “The union has already defended and obtained dismissal of other charges brought against it before the National Labor Relations Board relating to the Return to Work Agreement.”

“We believe in the strength of our cases, look forward to litigating the issues, eager to find justice for our clients and believe we will be victorious,” plaintiffs’ attorney Breyon J. Davis said to Deadline after the filings Thursday.

Initially put in place back in September 2020, as most of the Western world was under lockdown, the Covid-19 protocols were extended numerous times subsequently. In July 2021, they were amended to give producers “the option to implement mandatory vaccination policies for casts and crew in Zone A on a production-by-production basis.” Zone A, where unmasked actors work, is the most restrictive of the safe work zones on sets. In January of this year, 67.1% of guild members surveyed by SAG-AFTRA said that they “approve of employers requiring Covid vaccination as a condition of access to the set.” In the survey, 26.1% saying they disapproved of the mandate, and 6.8% said they had no opinion on the matter.

On May 11, the guild and the AMPTP ended all Covid protocols – including the vaccination mandate.

Along with SAG-AFTRA, studios like Disney and Netflix have been taken to court over the vaccine requirements, with most of those cases still winding their way through the justice system — which still has a backlog from its own pandemic lockdowns and mandates.

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