The writers’ strike against Hollywood studios could get a major boost today as the largest union representing actors votes on whether to join the Writers Guild America on the picket lines.
The negotiations board for SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 160,000 film and TV actors voted unanimously on Wednesday to strike and the national board will convene today and all signs indicate overwhelming support for the WGA, which went on strike May 2. In early June, the actors union voted to walk out if an agreement with the studios was not reached by the time it expired at the end of June. Negotiations that have gone on since then stalled this week, with accusations for the breakdown coming from both sides.
“The companies have refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely stonewalled us,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher in a statement. “Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal.”
“We are deeply disappointed that SAG-AFTRA has decided to walk away from negotiations,” the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that negotiates on behalf of Hollywood companies, said in a statement. “This is the union’s choice, not ours.”
At issue are concerns over changes that have taken place over the past decade as Hollywood has adjusted its focus from traditional network primetime programming to the explosion in high-end film-quality productions on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Prime and Hulu. WGA believes that as this landscape has changed, so should studios change the way writers are compensated and treated. AI, which has been a subject of concern for several years, has now also moved to the top of the list of concerns as generative AI platforms like ChatGPT gain hold and are viewed as an increasing threat on writers’ livelihoods.
If the walkout is approved, SAG-AFTRA members would join their fellow strikers on the picket lines in front of Hollywood studio headquarters, something some high-profile actors have already been doing. Matt Damon, who’s been promoting the upcoming theatrical release “Oppenheimer,” plans to detour from the current promotional tour to join the picket line if the vote passes.
“We ought to protect the people who are kind of on the margins,” Damon told The Associated Press. “And 26,000 bucks a year is what you have to make to get your health insurance. And there are a lot of people whose residual payments are what carry them across that threshold. And if those residual payments dry up, so does their health care. And that’s absolutely unacceptable. We can’t have that. So, we got to figure out something that is fair.”
If approved, the walkout would mark the first time actors have joined writers in striking against the studios since 1960. And considering the increasing demands for new content as streaming services attempt to expand their reach worldwide, the implications of a prolonged walkout could have devastating consequences. Nevertheless, the media landscape has dramatically changed over the last decade and some Hollywood bigwigs agree that the relationships between the studios and the people who produce the content need to change.
“You have a complete change in the underlying economics of the entertainment business that it previously held for certainly the last 50 years, if not the last 100 years,” Barry Diller told The New York Times. “Everything was basically in balance under the hegemony of five major studios, and then, oh, my God, along come the tech companies in Netflix, Amazon and Apple and the fast, transformative things that came out of Covid. The result of which is you have a business that’s just completely upended.”
