Talks between the Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and entertainment companies have collapsed.
After rocky discussions last night (Oct. 11), the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said the gap between the parties is “too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction.”
Echoing its doubts from July about the AMPTP’s intention of bargaining toward an agreement, SAG-AFTRA expressed “profound disappointment” at the studio heads walking away from the bargaining table after refusing to counter the union’s latest offer.
The SAG-AFTRA strike, which has brought both production and publicity to a halt for 90 days already, had its hopes dashed in a week that started on a promising note. On Monday (Oct. 9), another Hollywood union—the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA)—ratified a deal with the AMPTP and ended its 148-day strike.
The WGA was able to secure wage raises, increases in health and pension contributions, regulations for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in writing and training models, streaming data transparency, improved foreign streaming residuals as well as residuals based on streaming viewership, and more. SAG-AFTRA, which has similar asks, has not had the same luck thus far.
Quotable: Striking performers say etertainment companies refuse to budge
“These companies refuse to protect performers from being replaced by AI, they refuse to increase your wages to keep up with inflation, and they refuse to share a tiny portion of the immense revenue YOUR work generates for them. We have made big, meaningful counters on our end, including completely transforming our revenue share proposal, which would cost the companies less than 57¢ per subscriber each year. They have rejected our proposals and refused to counter.
SAG-AFTRA protest, by the digits
160,000: Number of SAG-AFTRA members, including actors, broadcast journalists, announcers, hosts, stunt performers, and other media professionals.
98%: Yes vote on SAG-AFTRA’s strike authorization on June 7, when the union began negotiations. Over 65,000 votes were cast. After negotiations and extensions, the strike eventually commended on July 14.
2%: Cut of streaming revenue SAG-AFTRA wants. The company executives believe that’s not a realistic ask.
$800 million: How much more the AMPTP said such a concession would cost the companies annually and “create an untenable economic burden.” SAG-AFTRA claims this figure is overstated by 60%.
6 months: The duration of the longest SAG strike in history, which happened in 2000 over commercial actors’ residual pay for television and radio ads, and pre-dated the 2012 SAG-AFTRA merger.