Hollywood actors are going on strike after contract negotiations fail
The entertainment industry is already at a standstill because of a writers strike.
July 13, 2023, 4:12 AM EDT / Updated July 13, 2023, 3:16 PM EDT
By Daniel Arkin
NBC.com
LOS ANGELES — Thousands of Hollywood actors are heading to the picket lines after their labor union and a trade group representing the industry's leading studios failed to reach a deal on a new contract, grinding film and television production to a halt.
The national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, voted unanimously Thursday morning to go on strike, the guild announced at an afternoon news conference.
The picket lines will start to form on Friday.
"What happens here is important because what's happening to us is happening across all fields of labor, by means of when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run," SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said.
The guild’s members, rattled by the economics of the streaming era and the rise of unregulated digital technologies, seek higher base compensation and safeguards around the use of artificial intelligence, among other demands. Hollywood's writers are already striking over similar issues.
In a news release early Thursday, SAG-AFTRA said that, after more than four weeks of bargaining, the trade association that represents major companies such as Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery “remains unwilling to offer a fair deal on the key issues that are essential" to its members.
Drescher, who starred on the sitcom “The Nanny,” said in that statement her guild “negotiated in good faith,” but “the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing the studios, said the strike was "certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life."
"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," the group said.
"The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry," the group added.
The strike will be limited to film and television productions. The walkout will not involve SAG-AFTRA members who work in the news business, such as certain broadcast hosts and announcers.
The announcement comes more than two months after the Writers Guild of America, a union that represents film and television scribes, started striking amid its own dispute with the AMPTP. (The group represents Comcast, the corporation that owns NBCUniversal; some employees of the NBCUniversal News Group are represented by the WGA.)
The writers walkout halted most television production, delayed the filming of some high-profile movies and sent late-night talk shows into reruns. The actors strike will likely force other sets to go dark.
SAG-AFTRA members authorized a strike June 5 by an overwhelming margin: 97.91% of the almost 65,000 members who cast votes. The guild began negotiating with the top studios and streaming services two days later.
The union’s existing contract with the major studios originally expired at 11:59 p.m. PT June 30, but both sides agreed to continue negotiations and extended the talks until midnight on July 12.
SAG-AFTRA has argued that performers have been undermined by the new economics of streaming entertainment and threatened by emerging technologies.
The guild is seeking increased base compensation for performers, which union leaders say has declined as streaming-first studios pivot away from paying out residuals to talent and inflation takes its toll on the economy in general.
The union’s actors are also alarmed by the threat posed by the unrelated use of AI (such as tools that can make digital replacements for recognizable stars) and the cost of “self-taped auditions” — videos that used to be paid for by casting departments and production offices.
In recent weeks, some in the entertainment business worried that all three major Hollywood guilds — SAG-AFTRA, WGA and the Directors Guild of America, or DGA — would walk off the job simultaneously.
But that will not be the case since the Directors Guild announced in early June it had reached a “truly historic” tentative agreement with the studios.
Daniel Arkin is a national reporter at NBC News.
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So SAG approved its Strike Authorization. About 98% of SAG members voted "Yes."
This means that if a deal between SAG and the AMPTP isn't reached by midnight on June 30, 2023, all of SAG will go on strike. Which means every actor in Hollywood will be on strike.
To act in a US-based and funded production, you have to be a member of SAG, with no exceptions. So if SAG goes on strike, every US-based funder production that is currently shooting is going to have to shut down indefinitely until at least the SAG strike is over.
Unlike with the WGA strike, there is no way productions can continue without the actors. (Not even the best Deep Fakes can be created in time to do it.) So SAG striking would for sure mean a 100% shutdown of the whole entertainment industry.
And yes, for my IWTV peeps, that means the production of Season 2 would have to stop and shut down, even though the shoot is taking place overseas. (FWIU, Season 2 isn't set to finish filming until the end of August). Sam, Jacob, Assad, Eric, and all the rest of the actors on the show would be considered to be crossing the picket line if they still went to the set to film if a strike is called for.
So June 30th is the date to look for. Because, like the WGA, I don't think SAG is going to waste any time to start their strike if a deal with the AMPTP isn't met.
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