Actors Emboldened, Energized After Writers Deal and Ahead of SAG-AFTRA Negotiations
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After 148 days of striking, Writers Guild of America members put down their picket signs and picked up their pencils, heading back to work with a tentative agreement in hand. Still marching outside studio gates are SAG-AFTRA members, but they aren’t alone.
On Friday morning, several days after the WGA landed its historic deal with the AMPTP and before SAG-AFTRA returns to the table Oct. 2, there was a massive turnout on the picket line outside the Warner Bros. lot, with over 600 people in attendance, according to SAG-AFTRA.
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Members appeared emboldened by the WGA deal and what it could mean for their upcoming talks. “It definitely gave me hope,” said Ghostbusters actor Ernie Hudson of the WGA deal. “It gave me encouragement that the execs are at least willing to try.” A joint statement on Wednesday from the AMPTP and the performers union about Monday’s return to talks noted that “several executives from AMPTP member companies will be in attendance.”
Hudson continued: “I want to see them there and I want to see them be serious about a deal. Negotiations are difficult because there’s a lot of posturing, but I hope we’ve already done that and we are now ready to wrap this thing up.” Emmy winner Beau Bridges, who was walking the line with Hudson, added: “We’re getting close to some serious negotiations, and you see it in the heightened energy here today.”
Monday’s negotiations were top of mind at the picket.
“We are showing strength in numbers as they are about to go into negotiations on Monday,” said actress Diana-Maria Riva, co-founder with fellow union member Lisa Vidal of Latinas Acting Up, which has been calling attention to the work of Latino performers and filmmakers during the ongoing strike.
Noted Vidal of the WGA agreement: “We have all felt that if they set the tone and get what they were fighting for, it sets up a fair playing ground for us.”
Cross-union solidarity was on display Friday, with members of IATSE, The Animation Guild and striking hospitality workers from Local 11 walking the picket lines alongside the actors. WGA members continued to walk the lines in support of SAG, with picketing actors shouting to passing writers “congratulations” about securing their tentative deal.
“Seeing that SAG is meeting with the AMPTP on Monday made me feel extremely motivated to come and support them because SAG is out here today showing [the studios] the same thing we showed them, which is that this tenacity and solidarity is unbreakable,” said Ben Flores, a writer and a WGA member.
“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” read a Sunday night WGA email to its strike captains. Among the terms covered by the new pact are minimum staffing requirements, minimum pay increases and guardrails on the use of AI. There is some overlap between what the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are asking for from the studio, notably residuals tied to streaming viewership and data transparency. The WGA negotiated to have confidential access to “the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high-budget streaming programs.”
Unlike earlier in the strike, conversations happening on the line Friday included optimistic talk about what to look forward to after the work stoppage. Burbank Mayor (and SAG-AFTRA member) Konstantine Anthony and Mónica Ramírez, of the nonprofit Justice for Migrant Women, were marching the line with Riva and Vidal, talking about the post-strike future for their organization. “Not just as picketers for the cause, but as Latinas in the industry, we have set off something we are going to have to continue after the strike,” said Riva. “There is already a disparity in seeing Latinos in film and TV, so we have a fight that will follow, post-strike.”
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