Fighting For Our Future!

During the first week in June, those working the phones in the Cagney Boardroom at SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles headquarters noticed something truly profound happening. “Members are really fired up,” one phone-banking volunteer said. “Everyone I’ve talked to has been really excited to hear from us,” another SAG-AFTRA member volunteer reported.

At that time, the writers had already been on strike for over a month and members were fueled by a determination to keep the acting profession sustainable for future generations. SAG-AFTRA members took to the phones to inform other members about the importance of voting “yes” on a strike authorization prior to negotiations with the studios and streamers, who are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

When the final tally came in on the evening of June 5, nearly 98% of voting SAG-AFTRA members approved the strike authorization referendum with a historic 64,000 votes cast — a far cry from the “militant minority” characterized by a Variety article published July 11.

This historic turnout granted SAG-AFTRA’s negotiators much-needed leverage within the walls of AMPTP headquarters in Sherman Oaks. Still, the producers’ team remained steadfast in their refusal to acknowledge the enormous shifts the industry has experienced over the past decade and stayed unwilling to comprehend how corporate greed has had such a detrimental impact on the lives of those who perform labor for the studios.

Since 2020, while multibillion-dollar corporations have enjoyed immense profits, inflation and new distribution models have eroded the income of middle-class, working actors — individuals who have also borne the burden of casting costs now that self-taped auditions are the industry norm. Compounding these inequities is the threat of generative AI technology. If allowed to remain unchecked, this technology could potentially destroy acting jobs while delivering lower-quality performances to audiences.

The union’s membership made it clear: Without a transformative change in SAG-AFTRA’s current contract with the AMPTP, the acting profession won’t be available as an option to future generations of performers.

SAG-AFTRA Strikes
In the final hours of SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the AMPTP, after nearly five weeks of work which included an extension through July 12 — and following over 70 days of WGA picketing — the CEOs began saying the quiet part out loud. An unnamed studio executive was quoted in a July 11 Deadline article as saying, “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

The social media backlash resulted in a surge of newfound support for the striking WGA members.

After SAG-AFTRA agreed to the AMPTP’s compressed bargaining schedule, the studios and streamers subjected the union to repeated stonewalling and delays. Asking for a fair deal was met with the AMPTP’s refusal, and on July 13, SAG-AFTRA announced that the National Board had voted nanimously to issue an order striking the TV/Theatrical Contracts. The dual strike made headlines around the world. It was the first time in over 60 years that both industry unions were on strike at the same time. From that 1960 strike came pension, health and residuals for actors in feature films licensed for showing on television.

At a press conference announcing the strike order, National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland highlighted the horrific absurdity of the studios’ so-called “groundbreaking” AI proposal.

“They proposed that our background actors should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation,” Crabtree-Ireland explained.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher’s remarks instantly went viral across social media.

“You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change too,” she said. “We’re not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us. What are we doing — moving around furniture on the Titanic? So the jig is up, AMPTP ... We are labor and we stand tall. We demand respect and to be honored for our contribution. You need to share the wealth, because you cannot exist without us!”

THE ISSUES

Compensation

Much of SAG-AFTRA’s disagreement with the AMPTP boils down to simple economic fairness. U.S. inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, has grown by over 18% since the union’s last contract went into effect in 2020. That contract was negotiated during the early months of the pandemic, at a time when everyone employed within the media and entertainment industries was eager to find a safe way to return to production, but in the last three years, inflation has eroded the value of those wage gains.

In real-dollar-value terms, scale rates for actors in 2023 are now 10% lower than they were in 2020. During the recent negotiations, the studio’s final wage offer would make up only half of the loss actors have experienced in their income.

Accepting such terms would mean that performers would be paid 5% less in real-dollar terms over the next three years than they were paid in June of 2020. This is unacceptable.

During the same period that has seen the erosion of actors’ wages, streamers have demanded that consumers pay ever-higher prices, reflecting increases in excess of actual inflation. Among the companies increasing their prices are Paramount+, which has increased the price of its ad-free plan by 20%; Disney+ which has increased the monthly price of its U.S. ad-free plan by 37.5%; and Apple TV+, which has increased its monthly price by 40%.

These global conglomerates clearly understand how to raise prices without raising wages. Their goal? Reward shareholders at the expense of both their workers and their audiences.

What the companies are failing to realize is that the labor of creative professionals is what brings value to these corporations’ bottom lines, and these professionals deserve to share in the revenue that global conglomerates are reaping from their labor. 

A New Proposal: Revenue Sharing
When residuals work as intended, they provide performers with income throughout their careers, which helps to offset the inevitable down times that almost all professional performers experience at some point. Far from lucrative “windfalls,” the typical residual
payment is modest. The value of the average residual payment under the TV/Theatrical Contracts in 2022 was $225. In real-dollar terms, this value is worth much less than the average residual payment in 2018.

Because the current residual structure has proven woefully inadequate to too many performers due to the shift from linear television to streaming, SAG-AFTRA has proposed a revenue-sharing model. Such a model would ensure that the casts of every film or series share in the revenue they generate for streaming platforms in addition to the current residuals system, which has become insufficient.

Health Care & Retirement Funding
Health care costs have been increasing faster than general inflation, and this trend has put tremendous pressure on all health plans, including the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan. In recent years, it’s become ever-harder for performers and their families to qualify for health coverage, shifting more of the burden of growing health care costs onto patients. The union has put forth a proposal to cure this concern, and also to improve funding of the SAG Pension Plan and AFTRA Retirement Fund — the two retirement plans that ensure performers have income to survive on when they reach retirement age. Both plans are desperately in need of further funding, and employer contributions into these plans are currently limited by episodic contribution caps that haven’t changed in 40 years.

SAG-AFTRA’s proposal would increase these limits in line with inflation, resulting in meaningful additional funding to these vitally important benefit plans. 

Artificial Intelligence
AI technology has rapidly advanced to the point where it is possible to create new performances from existing footage of a performer. If unchecked, this technology has the potential to destroy acting jobs while replacing humans in storytelling with computer-generated replicas. While the idea of an independent company using this technology can seem scary, the potential threat of a major corporation that holds the copyright to an actor’s past performances while also having access to this technology is colossal, and a dire risk to a performer’s livelihood. Safeguards need to be in place to ensure actors are always able to give consent to their likenesses being used in the creation of new projects, and that they are properly compensated.

Self-Tape Auditions
Almost all performers regularly compete for their next job. The highly competitive, burdensome and unregulated self-tape audition process has become corrupted in recent years, with studios and their casting departments often requiring actors to use online casting platforms to be considered for employment. These platforms require payments for meaningful access and provide preferential treatment depending on whether an actor has paid for more services and features.

Essentially, today’s casting business is an inequitable system built on the backs and payments of professional actors.

No one should be required to pay a fee to access work opportunities. Because of this, SAG-AFTRA seeks to make the process as fair as possible.

Why A Strike Now?
As of press time, the union has decided that withholding our labor from the producers is a necessary tactic in order to exert leverage on the employers responsible for exploitative labor practices — and this is why members headed to picket lines and rallies. In the ensuing weeks, the voices heard coming out of the megaphones have been human, not AI generated. 

Not All Work Is Struck
With its broad membership, SAG-AFTRA is a union that represents many different types of media professionals and has multiple contracts. This strike is specific to television, theatrical and streaming work being done under the TV/Theatrical Agreements, and SAG-AFTRA’s Notice of Non-Struck Work provides details of all the areas in which performers may continue to work and earn a living, while exerting pressure on the TV/Theatrical/Streaming producers throughout the strike.

Are you a part of this historic moment? Answers to common questions and details on picket locations can be found at sagaftrastrike.org.

This item was originally featured in the SAG-AFTRA summer 2023 magazine.