Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Rafael Espinal, has already lined up a meeting with Gotham-based SAG-AFTRA leadership to find out what the department could be doing to better serve the actors’ union as it enters new contract negotiations with Hollywood film and TV studios.
“We are prioritizing the workers who who run these productions. We’re going to be focused on finding ways to be supportive, to increase the amount of union jobs across the city,” Espinal, a former New York city council member and Freelancers Union executive director, told Variety on Monday. “And these productions are going to be one of those places we’ll be focused on. I actually am going to have a conversation later this week with the head of SAG-AFTRA here in New York, and I will learn more of what role…