SAG-AFTRA strike negotiations have broken down

The Hollywood writers strike formally ended on Tuesday, October 10, when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) voted to ratify its contract with the AMPTP (the group that represents Hollywood’s main studios and manufacturing firms). However the actors are nonetheless very a lot on the picket line — and there’s no clear finish in sight.

SAG-AFTRA — the 160,000-member union that represents Hollywood’s actors and performers — has been in talks with the AMPTP (Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers) since October 2. However late within the night on October 11, the AMPTP launched an announcement asserting that talks had been suspended, illuminating the primary of two main sticking factors within the negotiations.

“It’s clear that the hole between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is just too nice, and conversations are not transferring us in a productive route,” the AMPTP’s assertion read. The studios laid out their proposals within the assertion, highlighting SAG-AFTRA’s demand for a “viewership bonus” that the studios declare would price an extra $800 million per 12 months, an “untenable financial burden.”

The viewership bonus would improve compensation for performers whose tasks are very profitable, a measure that will require the studios to make public the viewership for streaming content material — one thing they’ve resisted.

Nevertheless it appears there’s one other main challenge at play, along with problems with compensation. Within the wee hours of October 12, SAG-AFTRA launched its own counterstatement, wherein the union stated that the AMPTP had “introduced a proposal that was, shockingly, price lower than they proposed earlier than the strike started.” The union additionally accused the AMPTP of getting “misrepresented to the press the price of the above proposal — overstating it by 60%.”

Michael Tullberg/Getty Photographs

But, according to SAG-AFTRA, the AMPTP’s proposal additionally “declare[s] to guard performer consent,” however would “demand ‘consent’ on the primary day of employment to be used of a performer’s digital duplicate for a whole cinematic universe (or any franchise venture).” This has been a sore level because the strike started in July. On the press convention announcing the start of the strike, the union’s Nationwide Government Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Eire stated that the AMPTP’s proposal for AI “proposed that our background actors ought to have the ability to be scanned, receives a commission for someday’s pay, and their firm ought to personal that scan, their picture, their likeness and to have the ability to use it for the remainder of eternity in any venture they need with no consent and no compensation.” Lots of SAG-AFTRA’s members depend on earnings from working as a background actor (the trade’s time period for “extras”) or in minor roles; a proposal like this may severely lower into that work.

For now, talks have been suspended. However because the trade inches towards Oscar season and the content material nicely dries up, either side of the negotiation really feel mounting strain.

Whereas SAG-AFTRA is on strike, actors don’t carry out in or promote struck work. Whereas the union has granted waivers to non-AMPTP tasks, the same old star-studded crimson carpets at fall festivals have been significantly much less crowded, and a few movies (similar to Dune: Half Two) have moved out of the autumn schedule altogether. Till SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP come to an settlement, issues are at a relative standstill.

But, just like the WGA — which received almost every thing it requested for after the second-longest strike in its historical past — SAG-AFTRA says that that is an existential second for his or her occupation, an inflection level in figuring out whether or not appearing can be a occupation going ahead. If the writers strike demonstrates something, this will, ultimately, be a ready sport.