Actors Set to Strike as SAG-AFTRA Contract Talks Collapse

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) are expected to go on strike on Thursday after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed. SAG-AFTRA’s contract with AMPTP was due for renewal by July 1, and the deadline was already extended once to July 12. After missing that deadline as well, the actors are expected to join their writer colleagues on the strike for the first time in over half a century.

SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee voted unanimously to recommend a strike after the deadline passed at midnight on Wednesday night, according to a report by Entertainment Tonight. On Thursday, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher released a statement saying that the union would call a meeting that same day with the National Board to officially vote on a strike order. If that strike order passes, all 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members will join the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which has been on strike for 70 days for similar reasons.

Drescher said in her statement that the AMPTP’s response to the union’s demands was “insulting and disrespectful.” She said that actors’ compensation “has been severely eroded by the rise of the streaming ecosystem,” and also seemed to reference the rise of AI, CGI and “deepfake” technology when she wrote that actors were “having their identity and talent exploited without consent and pay.”

According to Drescher, the AMPTP is stalling these negotiations by refusing to consider the union’s terms and proposals. She wrote: “The companies have refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely stonewalled us. Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal.”

“For the future of our profession, we stand together,” Drescher concluded. A preliminary vote back in June reportedly showed nearly 65,000 SAG-AFTRA members polled did support a strike. Some prominent stars have already voiced support for a strike, including Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence. The union’s list of proposals is 48 pages long but so far its full contents have not been made public.

If the strike order passes, this will be the first time SAG-AFTRA has gone on strike since 1980, and the first time both SAG-AFTRA and WGA have been on strike at the same time since the 1960s. It is expected to have a serious impact on the industry, the economy and the media landscape in the coming months – or perhaps years.