2023-12-06 03:31:00
Getty
Actors have officially given the stamp of approval for their latest deal with the studios.
SAG-AFTRA, which opened the ratification vote on November 14, has revealed that 78.33% of ballots were in favor of the November 8 tentative agreement with the AMPTP. That number is much higher than many expected given some of the noise on social media, particularly around A.I.
The vote by SAG-AFTRA members on the new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Tuesday, officially closes the labor actor that saw the Guild on the strike for 118 days — though many productions have already returned to work as permitted by SAG-AFTRA last month.
The 160,000-strong Guild’s rules required a majority vote of 50% + 1 of ballots to ratify the new deal. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, the last contract was approved by 74% of voting members. In 2017, 76% of voting members said, “Yes” to a new three-year contract.
The guild also noted that 38.15% of members voted this time around. In 2020, 27.2% of members voted and in 2017 it was 15.3%. The agreement expires June 30 2026.
Tuesday’s decision was widely expected, although this contract was much more controversial among members than the WGA’s, and SAG-AFTRA leadership has struggled to get some members on board. Similar to the writers’ contract, the SAG-AFTRA deal ventures into unknown territory with several provisions, including the guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence as well as the new streaming success bonus. While the WGA negotiating committee was overwhelmingly praised for the ground broken in that contract, not all members of the actors union welcomed this new contract with such open arms.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said, “I’m proud of our SAG-AFTRA membership. They struck for 118 days to grant the TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee the necessary leverage to secure over $1 billion in gains, along with the union’s first-ever protections around AI technology. Now they’ve locked in the gains by ratifying the contract. SAG-AFTRA members have remained incredibly engaged throughout this process, and I know they’ll continue their advocacy throughout our next negotiation cycle. This is a golden age for SAG-AFTRA, and our union has never been more powerful.”
SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said, “SAG-AFTRA members demanded a fundamental change in the way this industry treats them: fairness in compensation for their labor, protection from abusive use of AI technology, strengthened benefit plans, and equitable and respectful treatment for all members, among other things. This new contract delivers on these objectives and makes substantial progress in moving the industry in the right direction. By ratifying this contract, members have made it clear that they’re eager to use their unity to lay the groundwork for a better industry, improving the lives of those working in their profession. In any democratic institution, there will be disagreement at times. But no one should mistake the robust debate and democracy within SAG-AFTRA for any lack of unity in our purpose or mission: to protect and advance the cause of SAG-AFTRA members, now and forever.”
The road to a deal has not been easy for SAG-AFTRA, who joined writers on the picket lines in July following talks with the studios went south. The stalemate between the AMPTP and the guilds carried Hollywood through most of the summer, before the WGA struck a deal toward the end of September. Both parties seemed hopeful that the goodwill from that deal would bring regarding a quick end to the actors strike as well.
It took regarding 80 days for talks to officially resume between the actors guild and the studios, though negotiations quickly blew up once more on October 11 when the AMPTP left negotiations early following the guild proposed an alternative to its contentious revenue-sharing proposal, instead asking for a 57¢ subscriber fee. A few hours later, the studios informed guild leadership that talks were “suspended.”
After an appreciated but DOA bid by George Clooney and other A-listers to intervene in getting talks restarted and a call from Disney CEO Bob Iger to National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP announced on the 100th day of the strike that they would be returning to the table once once more on October 24. The parties had another rocky start, but continued to move closer to a deal with A.I. emerging as the final sticking point, which would not be solved until the eleventh hour.
After a summary of the MBA was released on November 12, a growing chorus of dissent rose among members who felt that the contract did not go far enough with its A.I. provisions. Among those dissenters was Justine Bateman and National Board member Matthew Modine.
In fact, the dissension became evident early in the approval process when the guild’s National Board met on November 10. That meeting went much longer than anticipated and eventually saw nine members of the Board, including Modine vote once morest the deal. That translated into a total approval from the wide-ranging Board of 86% taking the deal to the general membership for ratification. Since then, Modine made it clear he would be voting once morest the deal once more as a member.
Crabtree-Ireland and president Fran Drescher have worked hard to counteract the negativity surrounding the contract, holding several in-person and virtual informational sessions where members were encouraged to ask clarifying questions of their leadership before the voting deadline. On November 24, the guild finally released a full version of the 128-page tentative contract for members to read as well.
The leadership’s sentiment has largely remained that bigger gains would be made in the next contract, and any weaknesses in the 2023 MBA were not substantial enough to risk defaulting to the 2020 contract while leadership returned to the negotiating table with the studios.
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