SAG-AFTRA and Studios Have 3 Weeks to Reach a Contract – Here Are the Big Issues for Actors
With the Writers Guild still on strike and the Directors Guild reaching a tentative agreement, actors union SAG-AFTRA is stepping into the spotlight as it begins negotiating a new labor contract Wednesday with Hollywood’s studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
Like the WGA, SAG-AFTRA will have the additional leverage of a strike authorization after nearly 98% of members voted to allow the leadership to order a strike anytime after June 30, the expiration date of the current contract, if a satisfactory agreement can’t be reached.
That gives the union and the studios just over three weeks to iron out a contract that covers over 160,000 performers in film and television, including background actors and stunt performers. While SAG-AFTRA hasn’t released a full list of its pattern of demands, it has laid out in multiple tweets and memos to members that artificial intelligence, streaming residuals and regulations on self-taped auditions will be among the top priorities in negotiations.
“We must focus on modernizing our outdated and conservative contract,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher wrote in a message posted on the union’s website after the WGA strike began, calling on members to be “fearless and forward-thinking.”
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AI in the hot seat
On the AI front, talks between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA will likely differ from those held with the WGA. While the concept of studios using AI in the script-writing process is still mostly in the hypothetical stage, actors like James Earl Jones have already made deals to allow studios to use AI to recreate their voices, making the technology an immediate and tangible issue for actors.
The Writers Guild has taken a hard line in opposition to the use of AI in script generation, and the DGA said in its announcement of its agreement with the AMPTP that it has secured contract language that confirmed that “generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members.”
SAG-AFTRA, on the other hand, hasn’t shown quite the same oppositional stance. In an interview with TheWrap this past spring, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the guild’s national executive director, said that SAG-AFTRA is looking to build a standard in Hollywood where actors have full control over their performances and likenesses and can prevent studios and AI companies from using them for future productions or machine learning without consent and fair compensation.
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However, Crabtree-Ireland also said that there’s potential for AI to be used in a way that creates opportunities for actors rather than takes them away, and that SAG-AFTRA is looking to steer the entertainment industry in that direction.
“We definitely recognize that there are real risks to jobs, but past history has shown that resisting technology or pretending it doesn’t exist or hoping things don’t change doesn’t work,” he said. “We need to be ahead of the curve and have a say in how this technology will be used. And in doing so, we can help our members learn how they can benefit from AI.”
Self-taped control
Another major issue specific to actors is the potential for abuses around self-taped auditions. Labor insiders told TheWrap that a significant number of SAG-AFTRA members brought up complaints that studios, producers and casting agents were making unreasonable demands such as requiring them to furnish their own sets or wardrobe for an audition reel or submit a tape of them performing 12 pages of dialogue with just one day’s notice. Some actors even complained that they were asked to do dangerous things like performing while driving.
While Crabtree-Ireland wouldn’t go into specifics about the guild’s proposal to the AMPTP, he said that the guild is seeking regulations on the use of self-taped auditions that would make them more “equitable” and remove the financial or personal burdens that some actors face when auditioning for roles.
“There is a situation where actors feel like they have to pay someone to rent the use of an audition space, and to provide a reader and things like that for their own self-tapes,” he said. “The idea that actors need to spend hundreds of dollars to rent what amounts to a studio facility so that they can self-tape an audition is the sort of abuse that we are looking to curtail.”
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Residual issues
The biggest common thread that SAG-AFTRA shares in its labor talks with the WGA and DGA is streaming residuals. While SAG-AFTRA hasn’t released unionwide data on its members’ residuals pay like the WGA, it has pointed to decreasing streaming residuals as a reason why many working-class actors are struggling to make ends meet.
Insiders at SAG-AFTRA told TheWrap that a significant number of members at pre-negotiation meetings pointed out that their residual payments have fallen to the point that they are having difficulty meeting the annual earnings requirement to qualify for the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan, which currently stands at $26,470. While the overall total of residual payments sent by studios to SAG-AFTRA has increased, the guild is attributing that to the surge in films and TV shows being produced for streaming services and that such overall growth has not brought a similar boost in payments on an individual level for its tens of thousands of members.
The question will be whether SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP will be able to agree on a new residual structure that reverses this trend. While details are still forthcoming, the DGA said its tentative contract secures a 76% increase in residuals for foreign streaming pay, something that the DGA was looking for to better reflect the increasingly global viewership that Hollywood streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix enjoy.
But the DGA’s overview of its new deal didn’t include any language on whether residuals will be dictated on viewer counts for a show or film, a sign that the AMPTP and its member studios may be holding fast on not divulging viewership data that has been kept largely under wraps for years. SAG-AFTRA has said in a memo to members that the DGA’s deal won’t impact its own negotiations, creating a possible sticking point if the guild pushes for viewership data to be a part of a new residual structure while the studios remain steadfastly against it.
If that point or any other one remains unresolved, Hollywood could face its first double strike since 1960. That year, the Screen Actors Guild, then led by Ronald Reagan, staged a six-week strike that saw them join WGA members already on the picket lines, effectively bringing all of Hollywood’s productions to a stop. The strike led to the creation of residual structures for films airing on television as well as the creation of SAG’s first pension fund.
For all of TheWrap’s WGA strike coverage, click here.
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