SAG-AFTRA Members Toast Historic Victory Against AI: ‘It Was Up to Us’
It took 118 days of marching and negotiating for the actors’ union to reach a tentative deal with the Hollywood Studios Wednesday evening. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) leadership and negotiating committee voted unanimously to approve the tentative agreement with the Association of Motion Picture and Televisionn Producers (AMPTP), suspending the strike and allowing actors to return to work and productions to ramp up in full force.
It was an emotional moment for members of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee Wednesday. At a celebration at All Seasons Brewing in Los Angeles following the news, committee member Jack Mulcahy told Rolling Stone the room was filled with happy tears and expressions of relief.
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“It was a catharsis,” Mulcahy said.
According to Mulcahy, up until Wednesday morning there was “one little piece” of the contract that SAG-AFTRA was not happy with, but by Wednesday night the AMPTP responded with a change that they felt good about.
Artificial intelligence was a major sticking point and issue that members discussed when negotiating their new contract with the AMPTP. Mulcahy said he believes members will be satisfied with the deal points regarding AI, which they should receive by Monday when they vote to ratify the contract.
“We are extremely happy with what went down. We and the AMPTP are natural partners, we can’t be without each other, and this time around, especially with the advent of AI, those are models that were never in place before, so it was up to us as a committee to get the constraints and the regulations and the consent and the compensation and the control of our images,” Mulcahy said.
According to a SAG-AFTRA statement sent to members, the more than $1 billion deal includes “above-pattern” minimum wage increases, AI protections around consent and pay, and a streaming participation bonus. The tentative agreement will next be reviewed by the SAG-AFTRA National Board.
“We have arrived at a contract that will enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers,” the statement read. “Many thousands of performers now and into the future will benefit from this work.”
The AMPTP called the tentative agreement a “new paradigm,” including a new residual model for streamers, or payments performers receive for TV and film reruns. “It gives SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union,” wrote a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson in a statement.
Tom Kemp, negotiating committee vice chair, told Rolling Stone he was taken aback by his own emotion when there was a unanimous vote to move forward with the deal points.
“We started going around the room and talking about what we’ve accomplished, and when it was my turn I was surprised at my own emotion,” Kemp said. “We had been so pent-up and concentrated on getting the job done and when I started talking, these images came to me: I lost my wife three months after the last contract and I also thought of my grandfather who was a laborer-immigrant. He had a decent life because he was in a union and I thought I fulfilled his legacy.”
Most other committee members had similar responses, Kemp said. When each person shared their feelings on the matter, they “started to lose it” and would break out in tears.
“We just realized how monumental it was and how much pressure we had been under for so long,” Kemp said.
Not only did Kemp feel relief that the strike is coming to an end and people can get back to work, but he also said it was a major victory for the future trajectory of AI protections beyond working actors in Hollywood.
“I do think most people will be really happy. With AI restrictions, what we were able to put into the contract is going to be a model for a lot of other industries about how we deal with AI. We’re the ones who had to do it,” Kemp explained.
I do think most people will be really happy. With AI restrictions, what we were able to put into the contract is going to be a model for a lot of other industries about how we deal with AI. We’re the ones who had to do it.
On Sunday, the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee released a statement that Hollywood studios and streamers offered their “last, best, and final offer.” SAG-AFTRA responded to the AMPTP’s offer on Monday, and expressed that the union had yet to reach an agreement on AI protections.
Both actors and writers have expressed concerns with the growing threat to AI. When writers reached a tentative deal Sept. 27, they agreed that AI cannot replace writers within TV and film projects. Writers, though, can choose to use AI, but are not required to.
For their on screen counterparts, a top concern was paying background actors a low rate for digital replicas of their likeness. Gossip Girl’s (2021) Tavi Gevinson shared from the New York strike lines Tuesday that she had friends on the negotiating committee and had their backs on the picket lines.
“We didn’t strike this long to not have full AI protections, to not get the pay increases we deserve,” Gevinson told Rolling Stone. “And if it’s not an increase during inflation, it’s a pay cut.”
On Oct. 26, thousands of SAG-AFTRA members, including Gevinson, Pedro Pascal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Leslie Odom Jr. signed an open letter stating they’d rather stay on the picket lines than “cave” to a poor deal. That same week, The Wrap reported that Hollywood studios were willing to walk away from the bargaining table until 2024 if a deal wasn’t reached soon.
Hollywood studios and streamers have walked away before. Back in October, Hollywood execs met with the actors’ union for about five days on and off, until a subscriber-pegged proposal, or what Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos called a “levy” on subscribers, derailed the deal.
While the negotiating committee members described experiencing an emotional private moment on Wednesday night, the general vibe and feeling at the wider celebration with SAG-AFTRA members and strike captains was more celebratory. There were fewer tears, with dozens of people gathering for selfies and larger group photos, cheersing and toasting to their success, and breaking into collective chants, saying, “When we fight, we win!” and “Union!” Every time a recognized member walked into the bar, they were met with cheers and hugs.
After this long stretch of a lot of anxiety, worry, and exhaustion, I’m really just trying to enjoy tonight and celebrate.
Carly Turro, a strike captain at the Netflix pickets, told Rolling Stone she didn’t anticipate ending her day celebrating this agreement. It was a “delightful surprise” for Turro, who started her day at a Netflix picket, went to a training session at a new job she picked up, then checked her phone for the first time after work only to see hundreds of messages from the other Netflix captains. Quickly skimming through to get the gist of what was going on, she saw phrases like “We have a deal!” and “Tomorrow’s pickets are canceled!”
“We had our picket planned for tomorrow. We were going to have a Texas-themed BBQ, and to hear that it was canceled was surreal,” Turro said. “It feels a little impossible right now because we’ve all become a bit of a family and I’m going to miss the people I was on the picket line with. We really did get to bond. But I’m excited and I’m hopeful. I really trust our negotiating committee and I hope we all read the deal points and are relieved. I would be pretty surprised if we got to day 118 and we gave in more than we should have. After this long stretch of a lot of anxiety, worry, and exhaustion, I’m really just trying to enjoy tonight and celebrate.”
Turro echoed what negotiating committee members said about SAG-AFTRA setting a precedent for how different industries can navigate AI protections. It was a long and hard road, she said, but worth the fight if it meant securing a deal that makes sense for the future of AI and what that looks like, not just for actors.
“We didn’t take the fact that we were striking lightly and we knew and hated that it affected so many other people in this industry. It was not a small thing knowing that by striking, craft and hairdressers, and so many parts of this business that don’t get talked about as much were out of work. We all wanted to get back to work and we all wanted the AMPTP to give us a contract that could be something we would say yes to,” Turro said. “I really hope tonight we have something we can all be happy to say yes to and we have something for other unions [to look to] in the future when it comes to their negotiations. We were doing this for everyone.”
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