SAG-AFTRA, the union representing 160,000 performers, is just hours away from the extended deadline for their contract talks with Hollywood studios. In a statement Tuesday night, the negotiating committee said they’re “not confident” a deal will be reached by midnight to avert a strike.
Ahead of the contract’s original June 30 expiration date, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher released a video message saying that negotiations had been “extremely productive.” Days later, the negotiating committee decided to extend the contract deadline to July 12 to continue bargaining.
But with only a day left to bargain, the union changed its message on Tuesday, saying they’re not confident the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has “any intention of bargaining toward an agreement.”
“The tenor of the public statements and what we’ve heard from inside the room is there hasn’t been any progress, they’re still far apart, and they don’t have much time left,” Variety’s Gene Maddaus told KNX News. “At the current trajectory, they probably will be on strike tomorrow.”
SAG-AFTRA agreed Tuesday to a last-minute request to bring in a federal mediator, but slammed studio heads for leaking news about the mediation request to the media before informing the union’s negotiating committee.
The union also refused to extend contract talks beyond 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
“If the actors end up going on strike, this will be a historic event,” said Miranda Banks, associate professor of film, TV, and media studies at Loyola Marymount University. “It will bring us back to 1960, which was the last time that two of Hollywood’s major unions went on strike together.”
The Writers Guild of America has been on strike for over 70 days, and the studios so far have refused to return to the bargaining table. An unnamed studio executive told Deadline Tuesday that the AMPTP plans to let the strike continue until writers “start losing their apartments.”
The writers and actors share several key concerns in their contract negotiations, including streaming residuals and the use of AI.
“I don’t think that the writers, by any means, want the actors to go on strike. They want the actors to get what they need,” Banks said. “And I think the actors are clear enough, and the stakes are clear enough for actors, that they are going to go on strike if they don’t get some attention paid to these core issues.”
If actors join the writers on the picket lines, film and TV production, which has already been brought to a near-complete standstill, would halt entirely until a deal is reached.
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