Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1498689
38 SAG-AFTRA | Spring 2023 | sagaftra.org For Members T he SAG-AFTRA Foundation has broken ground on the Meryl Streep Center for Performing Artists in Los Angeles. The Center will be a 15,000 square-foot facility located on the penthouse level of SAG-AFTRA Plaza at 5757 Wilshire Blvd. Named in honor of Streep, a SAG-AFTRA Foundation Actors' Council member and decades-long supporter of the Foundation, the Center will serve as an educational hub and creative home for all 160,000 SAG-AFTRA artists. The Center, opening in early 2024, will include voiceover recording sound booths, an on-camera recording studio, tech labs, instructional classrooms and a state-of-the-art screening room with the latest technology, to be named after Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, two other longtime Foundation supporters. The Foundation works to support members nationwide with its free programs, having produced more than 10,000 free remote educational opportunities. From recording remote self-tape auditions to teaching new software programs to helping thousands of members set up remote voiceover recording studios, the Foundation has supported and trained more than 118,000 SAG-AFTRA participants through its wide array of online offerings, helping members develop new professional skills during an uncertain time. In order to take full advantage of all the free in-person and online educational classes, programs and resources, visit sagaftra.foundation to create your user account and receive notifications to sign up for all of the Foundation's free performers programs to help stimulate your growth and jumpstart new skills this year. SAG-AFTRA Foundation to Open New Facilities in L.A. in 2024 S AG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree- Ireland led a coalition of unions from around the world in Geneva in February to examine the future of work in the arts and entertainment. At the five-day International Labor Organization meeting, the leaders, representing more than a million workers, negotiated with employer and government representatives to create a document of principles that seek to improve working conditions and workers' rights. It urges cooperation between governments, employers and unions to promote laws that limit working hours, provide universal access to comprehensive social protections, and invest public funding to close the skills shortages in the sector. Additionally, the document calls for a "human-centered approach" to the adoption of new technology and artificial intelligence. "Artificial intelligence offers extraordinary possibilities but poses real threats," said Crabtree-Ireland, who served as the spokesperson for the workers' group. "A human-centered approach to AI is crucial to the future of our industry. These transformative technologies must complement human creativity, not seek to replace it. Now is the time for the ILO to help take on this issue and further a framework that ensures fairness and sustainability, as part of the broader agenda to advance decent work and access to collective bargaining for all workers." International labor leaders, from left, Maité Llanos (Switzerland), Benoît Machuel (France), Johannes Studinger (Belgium), Daniel Gomes (Senegal), Marie Kelly (Canada), Duncan Crabtree-Ireland (United States), and Dominick Luquer (Belgium). International Conference Examines the Future of Work The new Meryl Streep Center for Performing Artists at SAG-AFTRA Plaza will be an educational hub and creative home for all SAG-AFTRA members. The expansive facility will include the Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson Screening Room, below. BEST PRACTICE X2