SAG-AFTRA Responds to Studio’s Latest Offer and Will Meet Again Friday

Brian Welk
·5 min read
5

SAG-AFTRA has responded to the latest offer from the studios and will meet again for further negotiations with the AMPTP Friday, the guild said in a statement to members.

“Today, we passed a comprehensive counter across the table to the CEOs, and while talks for the day have ended, our committee just completed working internally tonight. We are scheduled to meet across the table again tomorrow,” the guild said.

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After a break in which the AMPTP suspended talks, the studios made a new offer on Tuesday, October 24. The strike has now stretched on for 105 days.

The studios’ latest offer was an improvement on the bonus structure designed to reward actors appearing on the most successful streaming series, but it did not offer a cut of overall streaming revenue as the guild has been demanding, sources told IndieWire. A studio-side source also says the studios have increased its percentage increase on salary minimums up from 5 percent in the first year to now be 7 percent.

That new offer from the studios was, according to one studio-side source who spoke to IndieWire, “very generous” and would provide more overall compensation, but did not initially go over great in the room with union negotiators. Nonetheless, talks are continuing. Baby steps.

Late on Thursday after news that negotiations ended for the day, an open letter was signed by over 4,000 actors, including many high-level stars, telling guild leadership “we have not come all this way not to cave now.”

“We have not gone without work, without pay, and walked picket lines for months just to give up on everything we’ve been fighting for. We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed,” the letter reads.

The studio CEOs in the room this week, including Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, and Universal’s Donna Langley, acknowledged that if a deal isn’t reached very soon, it will be very hard to get production back up and running before the end of the year. That will lead to some series cancellations and more movies being delayed within 2024 or beyond. You can take that as a threat to speed things along or as a harsh reality about how long it takes logistically to get people back to work.

The key sticking point in talks is SAG-AFTRA’s streaming revenue-sharing proposal. As initially proposed back in July, the guild would get a small cut of all streaming revenue generated. Earlier this month, the guild modified its proposal so that actors would receive compensation based on subscribers and viewership. The union viewed that as a major concession, but the studios ultimately walked away from the table and suspended talks. Sarandos called it a “levy” on subscribers and a “bridge too far.”

In speaking with IndieWire though, lead negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland called those remarks “offensive” and felt the studios were misrepresenting the guild’s proposal. SAG-AFTRA believes the new formula would require roughly $.57 per subscriber per year in added pay, which works out to about $500 million a year. The studios say it will cost closer to $800 million. The current streaming residual formula pays actors roughly $126 million a year.

The bonus structure that the studios proposed to the guild, and which they’ve now improved upon, is modeled off what the writers agreed to last month, ending the strike and winning added residuals for the top 20% of streaming shows. But Crabtree-Ireland previously told IndieWire that doesn’t work for SAG-AFTRA members because writers are compensated differently than actors, and it doesn’t help the many background or smaller actors working on popular shows that provide value for streamers but don’t rise to that upper crust.

The two sides are also split over minimum salaries for actors. The guild is asking for 11 percent raises in the first year of the new contract (Variety reported that the guild in its latest response has come down to 9%), but the studios previously offered 5 percent, which is what the WGA and DGA agreed to. The new AMPTP offer upped that percentage, according to a studio-side source. While it’s unclear by how much or if the guild will find that sufficient, it breaks from the pattern bargaining offered to the other guilds.

Other issues still at stake for the actors are the use of AI, regulations over self-taped auditions, and other improvements and raises for background actors and stunt performers.

The return to the negotiating table arrived this week after both sides of the table started feeling pressure. A group of A-list actors led by George Clooney proposed eliminating the cap on dues for the top-earning members. The hope is that it would help bridge the gap between the guild and studios in terms of the money they’re seeking for members. But SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher last week explained in an Instagram video message that member dues are not the same as an actor’s income, and the guild legally can’t use member dues to fund the healthcare and pension plans.

Talks originally meant for Wednesday were rescheduled to a day later on today, the 26th, to give the guild more time to prepare its response. Crabtree-Ireland before heading to the AMPTP offices appeared on the picket lines outside Paramount and told Deadline he was “cautiously optimistic” about the direction of talks.

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