Hollywood news: Why SAG-AFTRA is on strike

Eva Machek — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 12:16:27 +0000

Actors walking out on their own premiere, silence on social media and release dates being pushed. You’ve probably heard of the actors strike in one way or another. In this post I’ll go in detail about everything there is to know about the actors union, what their goals are for this strike and how it will influence the industry in the upcoming periods.

What is SAG-AFTRA?

SAG-AFTRA is the union that represents artists in America. The acronym stands for ‘Screen Actors Guild- American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It’s been named this since the 2012 fusion of the SAG and AFTRA which in turn were both created in the 1930s. The union consists of actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, dj’s, news writers, news directors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals.

Why would one want to be part of such a union? Well the answer is simple really. While an actor wants to focus on acting and the art behind it, the union does all the business-y things on the back-end. In the words of SAG-AFTRA: they negotiate the best wages, working conditions, and health and pension benefits; preserving and expanding members’ work opportunities; vigorously enforcing our contracts; and protecting members against unauthorized use of their work.

About 160.000 artists are part of this union, among whom loads of big name actors and icons. The contradictory reality of this strike is that these big name actors will be able to reach the biggest audience and create the biggest impact, while they are also the ones least affected by the outfall. Smaller actors will be the ones without an income, job and possibility for growth for the period of the strike. Luckily many actors have already shown solidarity and support to their fellow SAG-AFTRA members as well as the Writers Guild of America, the WGA that has been striking for similar reasons since May 2nd of 2023. We’ve seen loads of actors posting to their social media for awareness and ceasing the promotion of current projects. The stars of ‘Oppenheimer’ walked out on their own premiere on the 13th of July (one day before the strike) after attending the red carpet.

Keep reading to see the impact of the strike for members of the union as well as non-members!

What does the union want?

Last Thursday during a press conference, SAG-AFTRA officially announced the strike effective from Friday the 14th of July at 12:01 AM. In their bulletin they instruct all members to “Cease rendering all services and performing all work covered by the TV/Theatrical Contracts.”.

More than a week before that, on June 5th, SAG-AFTRA revealed that 97.91% of eligible voters within the union voted in favor of a strike even before the negotiations started. This means the members came to an almost unanimous agreement that, if needed, they would strike.

The strike pits SAG-AFTRA against the AMPTP, or in full: the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. This organization negotiates on behalf of producers and studios like Netflix, Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros and more.

These are the three biggest changes actors want to see:

1. Increased pay.

Acting is a job, like any other, that actors need to be able to earn their living with. Since the strike was announced, a lot of criticism from outsiders has been: “These actors are super rich people who don’t need even more money, what are they on about?”. However, the majority of SAG actors are working class actors auditioning their butt off and working a side job. Even if they book roles in considerably big projects, that doesn’t guarantee them good pay or their next employment. So yes, the top actors are getting paid enough. We’re fighting for better pay for everyone else.

2. Progress on residuals

What are residuals? This is the money actors get paid every time one of their projects is repeatedly used/shown again. This used to be a fairly easy concept: every time a television channel would show a movie, the actor would get paid a little bit. Same thing with tv commercials, films in theaters and physical media. Every time an actor’s work is used, they get a little bit of money (I can hear you thinking, what’s the difference between royalties and residuals? Well, they are generated in the same way, but the biggest difference is that residuals get paid through unions and royalties stay outside of this whole guild realm.)

If you want to know all the details about residuals, check out this presentation by SAG-AFTRA:

or check out the SAG-AFTRA website

Alright, so as I said, the process of paying residuals used to be pretty straightforward. Now, with streaming services taking up a big part of the market, the game has changed a little bit. Films and series are always at everyone’s disposal, and actors don’t get paid every time someone clicks on their show. The residual pay has decreased significantly and since this form of payment is the closest thing actors get to ‘passive income’, its has made earning a living as an actor challenging. The absence of residuals and royalties would require actors to work back to back projects, which is not realistic for non A-listers.

More on residuals and streaming services can be learned from this detailed post in the No Film School blog.

3. Protection against AI

Artificial Intelligence has, in theory, become undeniably capable of taking over parts of creative jobs, which is part of the reason the WGA is on strike: protection of the art form that is writing. In the acting world AI is forming a similar kind of threat. That is why the guild is asking for tighter regulations when it comes to tools that would be able to create digital composites of actors. They want to see safeguards regarding their likeness, voice and performance.

A very concerning message by the SAG chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland that has been circling the internet was that the AMPTP “… proposed that our background performers 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 en no compensation”

Not only does this mean background actors would have no control about the use of their likeness, it would also get rid of all background jobs after one day of work.

What will change for actors?

The SAG-AFTRA bulletin made a very clear list of services and performance work that must be withheld by their members during the strike: (These rules are specifically for the contacts on AMPTP-related productions.)

Principal on camera work, such as:
- Acting
- Singing
- Dancing
- Performing stunts
- Piloting on-camera aircraft
- Puppeteering
- Performance capture or motion capture work;

Principal off camera work, such as:
- ADR/Looping
- TV Trailers (promos) and Theatrical Trailers
- Voice Acting
- Singing
- Narration, including audio descriptive services except as the services may be covered by another collective bargaining agreement referred in the Notice to Members Regarding Non-Struck Work
- Stunt coordinating and related services

Background work
Stand-in work
Photo and/or body doubles
Fittings, wardrobe tests, and makeup tests
Rehearsals and camera tests
Scanning
Interviews and auditions (including via self-tape)
Promotion of/publicity services for work under the TV/Theatrical Contracts, such as:
- Tours
- Personal appearances
- Interviews
- Conventions
- Fan expos
- Festivals
- For your consideration events
- Panels
- Premieres/screenings
- Award shows
- Junkets
- Podcast appearances
- Social media
- Studio showcases

Negotiating and/or entering into and/or consenting to:
- An agreement to perform covered services in the future
- Any new agreement related to merchandising connected to a covered project
- The creation and use of digital replicas, including through the reuse of prior work
Performing on a trailer for a struck production or other ancillary content connected to a struck production.

SAG-AFTRA says the following about the non-AMPTP-related productions: “Members may be able to work on projects produced by non-AMPTP-related production companies under these agreements if such projects qualify for an Interim Agreement. A list of projects adhered to an Interim Agreement will be posted at sagaftrastrike.org.”

The bulletin furthermore adds:

“NOTICE TO NON-MEMBERS: Any non-member seeking future membership in SAG-AFTRA who performs covered services for a struck company during the strike will not be admitted into membership in SAG-AFTRA.”

What will change for the public?

The first obvious thing consumers will notice is projects getting delayed for an uncertain amount of time. The following productions announced stopping production already:

Deadpool 3
Mission impossible 8
Venom 3
Gladiator 2
Beetlejuice 2
Lilo & Stitch
Minecraft (yes, there was a movie being made with Jason Momoa)
Mortal Kombat 2

And this list will continue to grow very fast…

Basically all productions that still have to film with SAG-AFTRA actors, will have to wait. Even though the union is American, a lot of their members are international artists, which means not only productions in America are affected, but EVERYWHERE in the world where they cast SAG actors. Furthermore, as explained above, even non-members that still want a chance at ever becoming one, will probably lay off any of this work to avoid the risk of rejection by the union in the future.

The next thing you’ll notice is that actors will not promote their newest productions on social media. Some actors pushed out one last post on Thursday before midnight, but that was it. Actor Anthony Mackie even chose to make one last post about a production that’s not coming out until weeks, anticipating the long time the strike will take.

Got plans to attend any expo’s, conventions or panels any time soon? Don’t expect the actors to be there as this is also part of promotional and publicity activities that the actors can’t do.

What is timeline like for these strikes?

One can only guess with these kinds of strikes. However, the future does not look too bright for the WGA. This Deadline article shares a shocking message from a studio executive: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”

Since this article was released, both the WGA members that have been striking since May and SAG-AFTRA members have been enraged, and if anything, more motivated to change the industry rules.