On Wednesday (November 8), the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced that it had voted to approve a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and would officially end the actors’ strike at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday November 9.
Actors can now resume working on productions which have been put on ice for 118 days. The end of the strike also frees actors to return to red carpets and promote their work on talk shows and podcasts. Award shows can also resume: the Emmys, which was moved from September to January, can definitively go ahead.
The actors’ strike began on July 14 after SAG-AFTRA failed to reach an agreement with AMPTP over concerns such as AI and streaming residuals. It’s estimated that the Hollywood shutdown has cost the California economy $5 billion.
SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said the new contract will “enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers” and has valued its deal at more than $1 billion dollars. The guild told members “we have achieved a deal of extraordinary scope that includes ‘above-pattern’ minimum compensation increases, unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI, and for the first time establishes a streaming participation bonus.”
The guild will release full details of the agreement on Friday November 10. Members will then have the chance to vote to ratify the agreement.
In a statement published on Wednesday, the AMPTP said: “Today’s tentative agreement represents a new paradigm. It gives SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union, including the largest increase in minimum wages in the last forty years; a brand new residual for streaming programs; extensive consent and compensation protections in the use of artificial intelligence; and sizable contract increases on items across the board. AMPTP is pleased to have reached a tentative agreement and looks forward to the industry resuming the work of telling great stories.”
