SAG-AFTRA Announces Strike For Actors, Joining Writers On Picket Line

Thousands of Hollywood actors will be joining writers on the picket line after their union, SAG-AFTRA, and AMPTP were not able to agree on a final contract. This announcement marks the biggest strike in at least four decades and will shut down Hollywood.

In a press conference on Thursday led by SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) President Fran Drescher announced that they plan on going on strike starting at midnight on July 14 and will join the picket lines as early as Friday morning. The union represents about 160,000 movie and television actors. 

SAG-AFTRA will be sending out a notice to their actors detailing what is allowed during this strike. It was made clear that any promotions of films or TV series at any event or on social media are strictly prohibited, including upcoming movies this summer. In addition to this, no promotion of Emmy nominations, which was announced on Wednesday, will be allowed. 

These negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, have been ongoing for the past weeks after the three-year contract expired on Wednesday. SAG-AFTRA allowed a 12-day extension but were still unable to come to an agreement with the studios—the issues at hand range from AI technology to compensation. 

Drescher spoke about the greediness of major motion picture companies. She said she was “shocked” by the proposed contracts, which underpaid actors while “giving hundreds of millions of dollars to CEOs.”

She claimed that big studios do not have the actors’ best interests in mind. “What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor,” she said. “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 union feels that the proposed contracts do not reflect the changing business models. “The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital and AI,” Drescher continued. “This is a moment of history, a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble.”

In her empowering speech, she stated, “They stand on the wrong side of history at this moment. We stand in solidarity.” 

She said that this was not a decision the union came to lightly, nor a result anyone wanted, but she felt that their hand was forced by the companies.

During questions, a reporter brought up a statement that the studios released claiming they “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.” 

In response to this, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who is the chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, said that in the “groundbreaking AI proposal, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation.”

Crabtree-Ireland and the union found this unacceptable. “So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again,” he said. 

It is essential for the movie and TV industries that these contract issues are resolved as soon as possible as with writers and actors both being on strike, many popular series will not be filmed and the upcoming episodes will be on hold. In its place, reality TV shows will take over, as these will be the only series that are not facing a strike. If the strike continues into the fall, then upcoming films, such as Deadpool 3, may be delayed as well.