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The national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), a 160,000-strong union representing actors, approved a tentative deal with the Hollywood studios, SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher announced at a press conference Friday afternoon in Los Angeles.
Now, the “record-breaking contract” will head to union voters on Tuesday to be ratified with a majority vote. Ballots will be cast online, and the voting window will last 21 days. The agreement, which had 86% board approval, puts an end to the 118-day actors’ strike — the longest one ever.
Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland addressed the press and discussed details of the new contract during the presser, which began over two hours late. According to Crabtree-Ireland, the deal includes a 7% minimum wage increase; $40 million in residual participation bonuses for actors on streaming series that reach certain viewership thresholds; and over $1 billion in new wages and benefits.
“The weight of it all was extremely stressful,” Drescher remarked about the protracted negotiations. “We went to the press and said, ‘What are they doing? What are they waiting for? Are they trying to smoke us out?’ Well honey, I quit smoking a long time ago. So I think they finally realized they were facing a new kind of leadership in me and Duncan.”
Drescher claimed that the issue of AI was a major sticking point in negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP.
“If we don’t get that package, then what are we doing?” she said. “We’re not really able to protect our members in the way that they needed to be protected… If we didn’t get those barricades, what would it be in three years?”
As Crabtree-Ireland previously revealed to Rolling Stone, the deal calls for actors (or their estates, should they pass away) to have approval over their digital replicas, and to be compensated for them.
“Whenever one of our companies is going to make a replica of an actor, using digital technology, including AI, they have to actually disclose to the actor exactly what that replica is going to be used for. And the actor has a right to say yes or no to that. And if they say yes, they get compensated for it, none of which existed before,” explained Crabtree-Ireland.
He continued, “[AI] protection is going to extend to the use of any kind of image or likeness of deceased performers, so their estate or their heirs or the beneficiaries of their representatives will have the ability to say yes or no to that. So there’s a really robust set of protections for performers that I think will not only protect them during the trial of this contract, but for many years thereafter.”
Drescher also said even though it was stressful to feel “the weight of people who were out of work since the writers’ strike” who are a part of film sets in other capacities, like IATSE crew members, ultimately SAG-AFTRA’s deal with the studios will help set a precedent for other unions in the future.
“While we were feeling the weight of people whose livelihoods pretty much halted and the stresses of being able to pay their bills was mounting, we were also hearing from their leadership [to], ‘Get the best deal you can get because that’s going to have a profound impact on our next negotiations,’” Drescher shared. “So when it comes to minimums, that’s going to be something that’s going to be a big part of their conversation, but also with AI… because in a synthetic world… you don’t need drivers, you don’t need set builders, and so for us to keep holding out for the best AI package that we could get was also going to spill over into what their futures are going to look like.”
And the two SAG-AFTRA leaders stressed that this is just the latest SAG-AFTRA contract with the studios and the fight is far from done.
“This is an ongoing, living thing. And we’re not over. We’re only just beginning,” Drescher said.
Crabtree-Ireland later added, “Actors can go back to work right now… Some of them already have.”
