LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are headed for the picket lines after negotiations with major studios to hammer out a new contract failed on Wednsday night.
On Thursday, SAG-AFTRA’s National Board, which represents 160,000 television and movie actors, voted to strike on Thursday after 11th hour negotiations failed to make any progress on a new deal.
SAG-AFTRA members will join the Writers Guild of America, who have been on the picket lines since May, sparking the first industry-wide shutdown of Hollywood since 1960.
SAG-AFTRA’s contract expired on June 30th, but the union agreed to an extension to allow negotiations to continue. According to SAG-AFTRA, the union’s dispute with the studios includes wages, changes to residuals for actors, and protections from the use of artificial intelligence.
“What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor,” Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA’s president, told the New York Times. “When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, we have a problem.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP), who has been representing the studios in the contract negotiations, provided a statement to CelebrityAccess: “AMPTP member companies entered the negotiations with SAG-AFTRA with the goal of forging a new, mutually beneficial contract. The AMPTP presented a deal that offered historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, and a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members. A strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life. The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”
