[The two big sticking points between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP,
explained.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE ACTORS STRIKE NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BROKEN DOWN  
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Alissa Wilkinson
October 12, 2023
Vox
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_ The two big sticking points between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP,
explained. _

SAG-AFTRA is still on strike — and negotiations have broken down
again. , Apu Gomes/Getty Images

 

Alissa Wilkinson
[[link removed]] covers film and
culture for Vox. Alissa is a member of the New York Film Critics
Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.

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The Hollywood writers strike officially ended on Tuesday, October 10,
when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) voted to ratify its contract
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the AMPTP (the organization that represents Hollywood’s major
studios and production companies). But the actors are still very much
on the picket line — and there’s no clear end in sight.

SAG-AFTRA — the 160,000-member union
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performers — has been in talks with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion
Picture and Television Producers) since October 2. But late in the
evening on October 11, the AMPTP released a statement announcing that
talks had been suspended, illuminating the first of two major sticking
points in the negotiations.

“It is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too
great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive
direction,” the AMPTP’s statement read
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The studios laid out their proposals in the statement, highlighting
SAG-AFTRA’s demand for a “viewership bonus” that the studios
claim would cost an additional $800 million per year, an “untenable
economic burden.”

The viewership bonus would increase compensation for performers whose
projects are very successful, a measure that would require the studios
to make public the viewership for streaming content — something
they’ve resisted.

But it seems there’s another major issue at play, in addition to
issues of compensation. In the wee hours of October 12, SAG-AFTRA
released its own counterstatement
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union said that the AMPTP had “presented an offer that was,
shockingly, worth less than they proposed before the strike began.”
The union also accused the AMPTP of having “misrepresented to the
press the cost of the above proposal — overstating it by 60%.”

Yet, according to SAG-AFTRA
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AMPTP’s proposal also “claim[s] to protect performer consent,”
but would “demand ‘consent’ on the first day of employment for
use of a performer’s digital replica for an entire cinematic
universe (or any franchise project).” This has been a sore point
since the strike began in July. At the press conference announcing
the start of the strike
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the union’s National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan
Crabtree-Ireland said that the AMPTP’s proposal for AI
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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.” Many of
SAG-AFTRA’s members rely on income from working as a background
actor (the industry’s term for “extras”) or in minor roles; a
proposal like this would severely cut into that work.

For now, talks have been suspended. But as the industry inches toward
Oscar season and the content well dries up, both sides of the
negotiation feel mounting pressure.

While SAG-AFTRA is on strike, actors do not perform in or promote
struck work. While the union has granted waivers
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non-AMPTP projects, the usual star-studded red carpets at fall
festivals have been considerably less crowded, and some movies
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out of the fall schedule altogether. Until SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP
come to an agreement, things are at a relative standstill.

Yet, like the WGA — which won nearly everything it asked for after
the second-longest strike in its history — SAG-AFTRA says that this
is an existential moment for their profession, an inflection point in
determining whether acting will be a profession going forward. If the
writers strike demonstrates anything, this may, in the end, be a
waiting game.

 

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* SAG-AFTRA
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* SAG-AFTR Strike
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* AMPTP
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