In a live-streamed press conference today, SAG-AFTRA confirmed what we all suspected would happen: the actors are walking out. After negotiations between the actor’s guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to produce an acceptable successor contract, SAG-AFTRA allowed its contract to expire Wednesday at midnight.
And now, the actors are joining the writers on the picket lines as they withhold work until they get a fair and equitable contract. With a strong mandate from the first strike authorization vote and an unanimous vote from the negotiating committee, it seemed almost certain that the National Board of the Guild would authorize the labor action.
“Union members should withhold their labor until a contract has been achieved,” said National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland in a livestreamed media conference. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, said that it was “with great sadness that we came to this crossroads… we are the victims here. I am shocked by the way that people we have been in business with are treating us.”
Drescher was emotional as she delivered the news to both the general public and members of the SAG-AFTRA. “It was insulting,” she said, describing how they were treated in the negotiation room. “We came together…with the largest strike authorization vote in our unions history.”
“The jig is up AMPTP! We stand tall. You have to wake up and smell the coffee. We are labor, and we stand tall, and we demand respect, and to be honored for our contribution. You share the wealth,” she said, emotional at the end of her speech, “because you cannot exist without us.”
The floor opened for questions, including the AMPTP response to the SAG-AFTRA strike announcement. AMPTP stated they had a “historic AI proposal.” However, Crabtree-Ireland described the AI proposal, stating that AMPTP offered background actors to work one day on set, then, they would have their likenesses scanned and those likenesses could be used by the studios in perpetuity. Actors would get paid for one working day.
“The [AMPTP] knows what it takes to get a deal,” Crabtree-Ireland said, before saying that the AMPTP at the negotiating table called striking and collective action “uncivilized.” He also mentioned that the AMPTP refused to negotiate “meaningfully” on streaming revenue.
The last time that the Screen Actors Guild (prior to its merger with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) went on strike alongside the Writers Guild of America was back in 1960, when Ronald Reagan was SAG president. This united front alongside not just the striking WGA, but also the Teamsters, IATSE, and Hollywood Craft Unions, show that solidarity is going to be key to winning a fair contract for all workers.
“I have zero doubt that these companies could have agreed to every single item in our proposal package without a problem whatsoever in their bottom line. They could do that. They choose not to do that,” said Crabtree-Ireland when discussing what’s at stake when there is so much contention across the board.
“We told the CEOs and the AMPTP across the table as it relates to our streaming revenue proposal we would be flexible. The issue is that there has to be a change in structure.” Crabtree-Ireland also described a streaming revenue proposal that would share subscription revenue with productions based on how much viewership that production brought in.
Drescher reiterated that “we have to stand together on this” as the issues that SAG-AFTRA is fighting for are issues with the industry at large. Crabtree-Ireland also said that they have solidarity with international unions because this is a just fight that everyone is a part of. “This strike is 100% necessary and 100% deserved,” Crabtree-Ireland stated.
Drescher also pushed back against the idea that the general public wouldn’t be interested in the nuances of a SAG-AFTRA strike. She said, unequivocally, that the public “has an allegiance to all of us… I don’t think that your assumption that the [public] don’t really care about anything but being entertained over the summer… when the [actors] that give so much to them… are saying we are being taking advantage of in a terrible way.”
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