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Actors Ratify 3-year Contract, Ending Hollywood's Labor Turmoil

(FILES) SAG-AFTRA members and supporters walk the picket line as members of the Screen Actors Guild strike in New York on July 19, 2023. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
(FILES) SAG-AFTRA members and supporters walk the picket line as members of the Screen Actors Guild strike in New York on July 19, 2023. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
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Actors Ratify 3-year Contract, Ending Hollywood's Labor Turmoil

(FILES) SAG-AFTRA members and supporters walk the picket line as members of the Screen Actors Guild strike in New York on July 19, 2023. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
(FILES) SAG-AFTRA members and supporters walk the picket line as members of the Screen Actors Guild strike in New York on July 19, 2023. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)

Members of the SAG-AFTRA actors union approved a three-year contract with major studios on Tuesday, formally ending six months of Hollywood labor disputes that halted film and television production, Reuters reported.
SAG-AFTRA said 78% of those who voted supported the deal with Netflix Inc, Walt Disney Co and other members of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
Just 38% of eligible SAG-AFTRA members cast a ballot, the union said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. SAG-AFTRA represents roughly 160,000 actors and other media professionals.
The new contract provides for pay raises and streaming bonuses that union leaders said amounted to more than $1 billion over three years. It also includes guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in filmmaking, though some actors complained that the AI protections were not sufficient.
"This is a golden age for SAG-AFTRA, and our union has never been more powerful," the union's president, "The Nanny" actor Fran Drescher, said in a statement.
SAG-AFTRA members walked off the job in July and reached a tentative agreement with major studios in November. Actors started returning to work immediately after the preliminary deal.
Film and television writers also went on strike this year, walking out ahead of the actors union. After a five-month walkout, the writers approved a new contract in October with 99% of the vote.
Some actors had objected to AI provisions in the contract. The deal requires studios to obtain permission from celebrities to use their digital likenesses and to pay them for the use. Critics argued that the language allows creation of "synthetic performers" that could eliminate the need for many human actors.
The dual strikes shut down a large swath of film and TV production, halted late-night talk shows and forced broadcast networks to fill their fall schedules with repeats and reality shows. Major movies including "Dune: Part Two" and Marvel's "Thunderbolts" also were delayed.
Hollywood studios welcomed the contract ratification, saying the agreement offered "historic gains and protections."
"With this vote, the industry and the jobs it supports will be able to return in full force," the AMPTP said in a statement.
SAG-AFTRA noted that other Hollywood unions representing crew members, musicians and drivers will start negotiations on new contracts next year.
"They will be able to use our groundbreaking gains as leverage in their own bargaining efforts," SAG-AFTRA said.

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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.