Striking Writers Guild of America (WGA) members walk the picket line in front of Netflix offices as SAG-AFTRA union announced it had agreed to a ‘last-minute request’ by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for federal mediation, nevertheless it refused to again extend its existing labor contract past the 11:59 p.m. Wednesday negotiating deadline, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 12, 2023.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Hollywood actors are officially headed to the picket line.
Unable to achieve a take care of producers, members of The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined greater than 11,000 already striking film and tv writers Friday morning.
The failed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers means film and tv productions featuring actors will immediately halt, essentially shutting down Hollywood. It’ll be the primary tandem strike within the industry since 1960.
“We’re the victims here,” said Fran Drescher, president of the actors union, during a news conference Thursday. “We’re being victimized by a really greedy entity. I’m shocked by the way in which the those that we’ve been in business with are treating us.”
“It’s disgusting,” she said in fiery remarks. “Shame on them.”
SAG-AFTRA members are already taking the strike seriously. “Oppenheimer” actors left the film’s London premiere Thursday. Director Christopher Nolan told the group that the solid left and are “off to put in writing their picket signs.” The film opens next week.
Throughout the strike, actors is not going to be permitted to advertise past projects through conventions, interviews or panels. This includes any Emmy Award campaigning. Nominations for the annual award show were announced Wednesday and the ceremony is ready to happen Sept. 18 on Fox.
Heading into negotiations last month, Hollywood performers were seeking to improve wages, working conditions, and health and pension advantages, in addition to create guardrails for the usage of artificial intelligence in future television and film productions. Moreover, the union is in search of more transparency from streaming services about viewership in order that residual payments might be made equitable to that seen on linear TV.
“You can’t change the business model as much because it has modified and never expect the contract to alter, too,” Drescher said.
The Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since May, is in search of higher compensation and residuals, particularly in terms of streaming shows, in addition to recent rules that can require studios to staff television shows with a certain variety of writers for a particular period.
The guild is also in search of compensation throughout the technique of pre-production, production and post-production. Currently, writers are sometimes expected to offer revisions or craft recent material without being paid.
The WGA also shares similar concerns over the usage of artificial intelligence in terms of script writing.
SAG-AFTRA said producers have been unwilling to supply its members a good deal and have worked to delay negotiations.
The AMPTP responded to the strike declaration by issuing an announcement that it “presented a deal that offered historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, and a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses.”
It blamed SAG-AFTRA for stalled talks.
Addressing the producers’ statement, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, dismissed the AMPTP claims, especially when it got here to its AI proposal.
“In that groundbreaking AI proposal, they proposed that our background performers should give you the chance to be scanned, receives a commission for sooner or later’s pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and will give you the chance to make use of it for the remainder of eternity in any project they need with no consent and no compensation,” he said. “So should you think that is a groundbreaking proposal I suggest you re-evaluate.”
Drescher called the AMPTP members “crazy” and called their response to the actors’ proposals “insulting.”
SAG-AFTRA’s comments come as reports have surfaced about tactics studio producers allegedly plan to implement against writers, namely, that producers don’t plan on attempting to barter with writers for several more months. In keeping with the reports, producers expect writers will run out of cash and possibly lose their homes and be forced to come back to the bargaining table.
While the AMPTP has denied these reports, studio executives have remained outspoken about what they consider unreasonable contract requests.
“We managed as an industry to barter a excellent take care of the Directors Guild, that reflects the worth that the administrators contribute to this great business,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told CNBC on Thursday morning, ahead of SAG-AFTRA’s announcement. “We desired to do the identical thing with the writers. And we would wish to do the identical thing with the actors. There is a level of expectation that they’ve that’s just not realistic. They usually are adding to the set of challenges that this business is already facing, that is kind of frankly, very disruptive.”
Iger noted that the industry has not completely recovered from the coronavirus pandemic and these strikes come at “the worst time on the earth.”
“It’ll have a very, very damaging effect on the entire business,” he said. “And unfortunately there’s huge collateral damage to the industry, to people who find themselves, , support services. I could go on and on. It’ll affect the economy of various regions, even, due to sheer size of the business. It is a shame. It is basically a shame.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.