Netflix Sets Up $100 Million Coronavirus Relief Fund for Crew Members

TV and feature film productions around the world have been indefinitely shut down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which means that a ton of crew members are now without jobs. Big movie stars and popular filmmakers will be fine to wait out the shutdown, however long it lasts, but there are many people in these crews who can't say the same. Drivers, assistants, cooks, electricians, custodians, and so many others are now out of work, with no official timetable for when they can return. Netflix has taken notice of this and is leading the charge to make sure crew members working on the streamer's projects are being taken care of, creating a $100 million relief fund to keep them paid.

In a company blog post on Friday, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos confirmed that the company had created the relief fund in order to take care of the industry workers who would be most affected by the production shutdowns. This fund will go beyond the two weeks of pay that Netflix had already promised to its production employees.

The majority of the money in the fund will go directly to those who work for the various Netflix productions around the globe and need financial help the most. Another $15 million will be given to third parties and non-profit organizations providing emergency relief in the countries where the streamer has the biggest production base.

You can check out the full letter from Sarandos below:

The Covid-19 crisis is devastating for many industries, including the creative community. Almost all television and film production has now ceased globally – leaving hundreds of thousands of crew and cast without jobs. These include electricians, carpenters and drivers, many of whom are paid hourly wages and work on a project-to-project basis.

This community has supported Netflix through the good times, and we want to help them through these hard times, especially while governments are still figuring out what economic support they will provide. So we've created a $100 million fund to help with hardship in the creative community.

Most of the fund will go towards support for the hardest hit workers on our own productions around the world. We're in the process of working out exactly what this means, production by production. This is in addition to the two weeks pay we've already committed to the crew and cast on productions we were forced to suspend last week.

Beyond helping workers on our own productions, we also want to support the broader film and television industry. So $15 million of the fund will go to third parties and non-profits providing emergency relief to out-of-work crew and cast in the countries where we have a large production base.

In the United States and Canada non-profits already exist to do this work. We will be donating $1 million each to the SAG-AFTRA Covid-19 Disaster Fund, the Motion Picture and Television Fund and the Actors Fund Emergency Assistance in the US, and $1 million between the AFC and Fondation des Artistes. In other regions, including Europe, Latin America and Asia where we have a big production presence, we are working with existing industry organizations to create similar creative community emergency relief efforts. We will announce the details of donations to groups in other countries next week.

What's happening is unprecedented. We are only as strong as the people we work with and Netflix is fortunate to be able to help those hardest hit in our industry through this challenging time.

Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer