The Grey’s Anatomy cast members reunited on the picket lines.
Actress Kim Raver, who plays Dr. Teddy Altman on the drama, shared highlights on Instagram from a SAG/AFTRA picketing session on Friday which also included several other cast members from the ABC show, including Chandra Wilson, James Pickens Jr. and others.
In the short video set to Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer,” Raver showed herself holding a picket sign as she walked the streets alongside fellow Grey’s stars Wilson and Jaicy Elliot. She also shared a bunch of group photos posing alongside Wilson, Pickens Jr., Elliot, along with Harry Shum Jr., Caterina Scorsone and Niko Tehro.
The video featured Wilson and Pickens Jr. making speeches in front of a SAG/AFTRA tent to the other actors on the picket line, arousing applause from the crowd. In addition, actor and SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee member Jason George spoke to the attendees and posed with the group for photos.
“Proud to stand in solidarity on the picket line today with many of our Grey’s cast/crew family and fellow #SAGAFTRA Union members today in front of Warner Brothers! A special shout out to @jasonwinstongeorge, thank you!! 💪💪💪,” she captioned the video.
This specific picketing session outside Warner Bros. in Burbank focused on actors working in first responder TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, according to Deadline.
“The business model has changed,” Pickens Jr. said at the event, per the outlet. “We have to be a part of that change. It’s about equity, it’s about what is fair. We are not going to stop here. We are going to continue until they listen [to] us. Without us there would be no Warner Bros., there would be no Disney.”
George, who noted during his speech that “first responders shows are the absolute back of this industry,” asked actors to “stay strong,, to keep on the lines, to tell everyone you know to show up because this keeps the pressure on. That’s what it’s about.”
SAG-AFTRA — the union that comprises the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — announced in July that it initiated a strike after failed contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The union’s president Fran Drescher called the decision to strike “unanimous” during a press conference and said that the “entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, A.I.”
Ahead of the strike, members of SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) had been seeking pay and residual increases, higher caps on pension and health contributions and regulating the use of artificial intelligence, among other things.
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