Hollywood actors are on strike in the wake of collapsed negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP. On the table are issues like pay, residuals and AI.
Hollywood actors are joining TV and film writers on the picket lines.
Every three years, the entertainment industry’s various unions negotiate new contracts opposite the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios like Warner Bros. Discovery and Universal Pictures and streaming networks like Amazon and Hulu. Contracts cover the parameters of workers’ varied jobs and ensure pay is adequate, health and safety standards are met, and so on.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the union which represents various performers, entered negotiations surrounding actors’ film and television work on June 7 with their contracts set to expire on June 30. Their negotiations ongoing, the organizations agreed to extend actors’ contracts until July 12.
But on July 13, SAG-AFTRA announced the two parties could not come to an agreement. Later that day, the union officially issued a strike order for its actors.
Here’s what that means for both them and the industry.’The business has fundamentally changed’
The bottom line of these conversations is in the age of streaming, « the business has fundamentally changed and therefore requires a new way of compensating people, » says Paul Hardart, director of New York University’s Entertainment, Media and Technology Program.
On a granular level, there are several sticking points on which actors and studios could not ultimately agree. They include the following:
Wage increases: « SAG-AFTRA wants increases that make up for the high inflation we’ve had recently, » says entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel. Wages differ depending on performer, but a non-background actor’s minimum rate for a film with a total budget greater than $2,000,000 was $3,756 per week at the end of the last contract.
Residuals in streaming: « There is a residuals formula already but the union wants an additional formula that would apply to shows that are successful and would reward the actors in excess, » says Handel.
AI use: « The actors don’t want to be displaced by technology and certainly not without being compensated for it, » says Handel.
