This is not simply false, this is the typical FUD spread by people who have no idea how guilds or unions actually work.
SAG does not prohibit non-union actors in SAG-covered productions. In fact, appearing in a SAG-covered production is how one qualifies for membership into SAG.
SAG sets minimum thresholds for pay, benefits, and rights. Actors are free to negotiate better packages if they have the leverage for it. Most don't, which is why the actor-waiter meme is a thing for people hoping to get cast into a SAG-covered role. As someone who has appeared as a background actor in a SAG-covered production: SAG minimums are significantly higher than non-SAG pay, at every level.
I have been a member of several unions and I know what I'm talking about.
You can disagree if you want, but I am speaking from real life experience.
I have been part of the legal counsel to several Hollywood guilds/unions, and have participated in the production of multiple Hollywood and non-Hollywood productions. Like you, I was also a member of a non-Hollywood union (while I was in the public sector), though that experience is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
The intended legal requirement can be very different from the way it’s practiced on the ground.
My own attempts to break-in + friends’ experiences shows a clear pattern: the guilds gatekeep, almost arbitrarily, and creates environments primed for abuse.
Perhaps the legal, corporate side of the guilds should realign with the reality on the ground and change this. That is, if this is an undesirable state of affairs.
It sounds like you and your friends tried to get hired as crew onto jobs for which you have no experience, because if you guys did have the experience you would already be union members and you would be swamped with work or offers. (The thresholds are pretty low. I'm one production away from being a member of several unions and I'm trying very hard to avoid that since it would limit my ability to work on non-union productions).
Most jobs don't hire people without experience without someone vouching for them. Why would you think that Hollywood would be different? They don't know you from Adam and from their point of view there are millions of other people just like you that are willing to put in the time and effort to start at the bottom instead of trying to skip a few rungs.
If you want to work in film, start at the bottom (i.e., meaning as an assistant or an extra) or work non-unionized productions (generally, low-budget or student films).
I’ve been a member of SAG (as a child, but still!) and the WGA (as an adult). The systems are imperfect. They are also significantly better than productions with no guild affiliation.
The gatekeeping by recruiters and HR departments is extreme - until I got my CS degree a couple of years ago I could not get interviews anywhere, despite the fact I'd never been sacked from a job and was always one of the best coders in my teams with the broadest range of experience.
I lucked out many years ago on getting an interesting job but that job went through a series of acquisitions and after a while I kept trying to get out but couldn't get interviewed anywhere.
Then I finally get a degree and get a job made with a contact while doing that and all of a sudden a few years later I can at least get to the first round of interviews.
Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves.
Software developers are essentially the blue collar workers of the 21st century. We are the modern fitters and turners. Highly skilled in some cases, but not valued.
(I agree that there's some gatekeeping, and I'd rather see the industry pay less attention to degrees.)
If you had trouble getting your foot in the door, it's probably because of something else.
> Software development is in no way a meritocracy, and companies see us as interchangeable components with very little intrinsic value as SV workers are finding out in droves.
That's just not true. Interchangeable cogs in a machine don't get paid several hundred thousand dollars a year. If you want to see what being interchangeable really looks like, work in the food service industry.
I have never got paid close to several hundred thousand dollars a year, and I have always had trouble getting through the HR degree filter until the last couple of years when I finally got my CS degree.
You could be right, the problem is me. I don't have enough contacts due to 15 years of fully remote work and spending too much time at my previous job, and I don't want to flog myself any more because I'm in my 50s.
But I am certain my career has suffered greatly by not having that piece of paper 'proving' to HR I know what I'm doing. And yes, I am bitter about it ;)
We really, really don't want that in tech. Tech is one of the few segments of the economy where skill trumps credentials and connections for people entering the field. As a result, tech benefits from a lot of talent that would be ignored by more traditional methods of filtering candidates.
And what would tech workers gain? Unions don't stop layoffs -- look at the past few decades in the auto industry for proof. Unions would also negotiate standard pay packages that might be attractive to low performers, but would hold high performers back. Plus, severance packages are already legally mandated for layoffs in the places where the majority of tech workers live.