Telenovela actors at Telemundo voted overwhelmingly to unionize on Wednesday, bringing collective bargaining to the world of U.S. Spanish-language television. It had been 65 years since actors at a major U.S. network had cast ballots in a union election, according to the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The union says Telemundo performers voted 91 to 21 in favor of unionizing, though the results have not yet been ratified by government officials. Telemundo, which is owned by NBC-Universal, had been an outlier in U.S. television as the only network using professional actors not working under union contracts. “It was a long journey, and it was hard,” said the 35-year-old Azar, a Mexico native who, like many Telemundo performers, lives in Miami.

Source: Huffington Post March 08, 2017 23:48 UTC