If SAG-AFTRA Goes Out, How Fast Will WGA Go Back in to Negotiations With AMPTP?
Buckle up for a busy 72 hours.
SAG-AFTRA’s already-extended contract talks will come to a head one way or another by the July 12 midnight PT expiration deadline. And as goes SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the major studios and streamers goes the rest of Hollywood’s year.
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By multiple accounts, progress in the negotiating room has been negligible since SAG-AFTRA granted a 12-day extension of talks hours before the contract expired June 30. The mood across town is grim with the expectation that Hollywood will soon endure its first “double strike” in more than 60 years. The Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since May 2, stands ready to help SAG-AFTRA execute its first industry-wide work stoppage since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. SAG-AFTRA’s move would bring a burst of energy to the WGA’s public efforts at a time when union members privately acknowledge that strike fatigue is setting in. With little diminution in the resolve of WGA members to back their union, polite discussions of “what’s the endgame” are nonetheless rising among writers and showrunners who were busy juggling multiple projects for 2023 and 2024 before scribes went pencils down.
The view from the management side is that SAG-AFTRA won’t prioritize its long list of demands and won’t budge on the issues that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have identified as the biggest obstacles to setting a new three-year master contract. SAG-AFTRA leaders feel the AMPTP companies are the unreasonable ones, refusing to engage on demands such as a performance-based residual and protections for human actors as generative AI tools proliferate.
The union has also pushed hard for a 14% hike in union minimums in year one of the deal, in a nod to the rising cost of living. That’s a 9% increase over the deal the AMPTP recently ratified with the DGA, which means the studios would retroactively hike the DGA fees as well under the favored-nations concept built into WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA contract agreements. It bears repeating that these contract talks come at a time when most of Hollywood is dealing with a smoking crater where profits used to be on their earnings reports, as the bills have come due after years of lavish spending on content and direct-to-consumer empire building.
Soon, SAG-AFTRA leaders will have to make the final calculation as to whether taking the union out on strike, in this economic climate, will be better for working actors in the long run. The performers union’s cause was not helped by the timing of SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher’s weekend trip to Puglia, Italy, to take part in a Dolce & Gabbana promotional event in keeping with her work as a brand ambassador for the fashion line. The response to pictures of Drescher that surfaced in a luxurious party setting with glitterati celebs including Kim Kardashian was fast, furious and generally unforgiving.
By multiple accounts, SAG-AFTRA’s top leaders were leaning toward compromises that gave some plugged-in observers hope last week that a strike might be averted. But Drescher has been described as an “unpredictable” factor in the negotiating room. She signaled her intention to be more closely involved in the negotiations than past presidents, in part because of her range of experience in entertainment dealmaking. She’s well versed in the issues, but has not been as effective in narrowing the focus to solving the dealbreakers for both sides. In part because she is so recognizable, Drescher is seen as vulnerable to lobbying by every faction of SAG-AFTRA. During the first week of negotiations last month, Drescher addressed the combined SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP assembly via a video conference with an impassioned speech about the struggles of working actors including background players and extras. That set the tongues of industry executives wagging about dealing with “‘The Nanny’ negotiation,” a snarky reference to the CBS sitcom that Drescher toplined from 1993 to 1999.
One issue that has frustrated AMPTP leaders is SAG-AFTRA’s focus on establishing a performance-based residual for streaming series as a means of rewarding writers and others for success. That proposal includes bringing in a third-party data analytics firm to track streaming usage. Both of those concepts would be such a radical extension of the reach of a traditional Hollywood union contract as to be impossible to sort through in three weeks, the time initially allotted for SAG-AFTRA negotiations. Once again, sources point to a lack of prioritization among a 40-page list of demands as a big problem that appears poised to be solved only by a strike.
If SAG-AFTRA walks, the AMPTP will most surely turn to the WGA with a renewed offer to negotiate. By all accounts, there has been no contact — no backchanneling, no secret meetings in a well-connected lawyer’s backyard, no off-the-record chats on the back nine — between the studios and scribe tribe since the night of May 1.
The AMPTP declined to comment for this story, citing the media blackout around the SAG-AFTRA negotiations. WGA leaders are under no such blackout. To their credit, guild leaders have been vocal and consistent in their message to members and to the public. David Goodman, co-chair of the WGA negotiating committee and a past WGA West president, sounded ready to re-engage when pressed last week on where things stand for the WGA.
“The companies have to make the move that they’re willing to talk about the issues we’ve raised,” Goodman told Variety. “We’ve already dropped a few of our proposals. We came to the middle with them on a couple of our proposals. We’ve already shown that we’re able to have a meaningful conversation and negotiation but if they’re not willing to talk about the issues we’ve raised, then there’s nothing we can do. They have to make the move of saying ‘OK, let’s negotiate. Let’s figure out a way to get this deal done.’ ”
If SAG-AFTRA goes on strike, the WGA will be in the unfamiliar position of benefiting from big-time pressure on employers provided by one of its industry union siblings – something that hasn’t happened since Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House. WGA members will be watching as closely as studio and streamer executives to see how their leaders capitalize on the emergence of a second front. So will a host of other businesses that have lost money and opportunities as Hollywood productions have gone dark.
“Strikes are very difficult things,” Goodman said. “They require sacrifice not just from our members but other unions who are making a great deal of sacrifice in support of us.”
Chris Keyser, who is co-chair with Goodman of the WGA negotiating committee and also a past WGA West president, is keenly aware of the shifting dynamics. When pressed last week on what’s next, Keyser sounded like a leader who is keenly aware of the need to manage expectations, internally and externally.
“The way in which the companies have changed the business cannot go on. That’s our perspective,” Keyser told Variety. “The fact that the writing profession has become untenable for most people cannot go on. The issue right now is not how long the strike can go on – it’s about how long does it take to make this a profession we can survive in? We’re going to fix the system they broke. We’re going to make the systematic changes in television and features that need to be made.”
Your move, AMPTP.
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