SAG-AFTRA Authorizes Strike At The Possibility Of Failed Contract Talks

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has authorized a possible strike if contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) fail to properly address their concerns. According to SAG-AFTRA, about 65% of their eligible members voted overall, with nearly 47.69% casting ballots on Monday and 97.91% in favor of the strike.

This vote comes about nearly two days before the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA will begin their contract renegotiations, following a rising trend of various entertainment unions demanding changes to suit their needs. SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland applauded the union members for voting in favor of a strike and hopes to be able to use these talks to discuss “inflation, dwindling residuals due to streaming, and generative AI,” which can “threaten actors’ ability to earn a livelihood if [their] contracts are not adapted to reflect the new realities.” When approached for a comment, the AMPTP stated, “We are approaching these negotiations with the goal of achieving a new agreement that is beneficial to SAG-AFTRA members and the industry overall.”

Though these issues all plague the union and their future in the industry, Crabtree-Ireland has reiterated in a guest column in Variety that AI seems to cast the longest shadow on their well-being. In his writing, Crabtree admits that he is not calling for the ban of AI since he sees it as a tool that can be used for certain tasks, but he decries how studios have taken many alarming steps toward replacing actors and writers with AI technology. Crabtree condemns this idea, noting that people are more interested in the soul of entertainment, not just content that can be spewed out of a computer. “Audiences aren’t going to want to watch AI-generated shows that lack a human spark for the same reason it’s not interesting to watch two computers play chess,” he states. To combat this, he suggests protecting actors’ voices and likenesses under copyright law and preventing AI from using copyrighted works to generate their content. With all this in mind, Crabtree hopes that through these discussions, they may be able to find a way to use these tools “to explore new frontiers of human creativity, not to sideline people in favor of a “good-enough” algorithm that regurgitates remixes of actual creative works.”