New protections for generative artificial intelligence and the long-awaited merger of SAG-AFTRA’s two retirement plans are just some of the terms of SAG-AFTRA’s four-year deal with the studios and streamers, which was unveiled Monday.
In a year in which the performers’ union was highlighted for providing protections for artificial intelligence, the interim agreement provides notable safeguards against “artificial” (i.e., non-human) performers generated by the technology. It holds producers to a “principle that strongly favors human performance,” the union describes, and calls on producers not to use artificial performers in place of human performers unless doing so provides “significant additional value” to the project.
The agreement also outlines a long-awaited plan to merge the guild’s two pension plans for the first time since the Screen Actors Guild merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in 2012. The SAG Pension Plan and the AFTRA Retirement Plan are targeting a merger by Jan. 1, 2028, while contribution rates will rise by 1 percent.
These details arrived on Monday after the union’s National Council approved the deal and sent it to members for a vote to ratify it. The vote, which will determine whether the agreement can enter into force, is scheduled to take place between May 14 and June 4.
“This contract is a testament to the incredible unity and determination of our members, and I am proud to have reached an agreement that leads to meaningful gains across the board, from benefits plans to artificial intelligence to waste, and beyond,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator, said in a statement.
Additionally, the deal creates new guardrails for AI-generated digital replicas, requiring companies to have a “clear business reason” to clear a performer and preventing digital replicas from being used in a way that would result in the actor seeking approval (or crossing the picket line, as it were) during the SAG-AFTRA strike. It sets a minimum and residual payment rate for the use of independently created digital replicas, or when a company uses a digital replica that it did not produce itself, among other protections.
As usual, compensation gains are part of the package. Minimum wage rates are scheduled to increase by 3% each year under the agreement, and the union health plan contribution rate will increase by 1% as of July 1. (However, the health plan will have to acquiesce to the reality of health care inflation in the United States, as negotiators will recommend that the health plan trustees make a quarterly increase in eligibility premiums and raise the eligibility threshold by one percent annually.)
A closer look at the deal yields some other interesting tidbits. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers agreed to recognize SAG-AFTRA as the exclusive bargaining representative for choreographers, who had been organizing themselves for some time, and agreed to cover them as part of the film/TV agreement. The association requires studios and streamers to display their logo in the end credits of covered projects. The guild and studios agreed to meet to reconsider confidentiality agreements that outline how the working group can review the studios’ new media licensing agreements.
And there’s more. The guild and studios will meet to determine whether, in the future, they will create an “industry-wide resource” for conducting background checks for intimacy coordinators, which SAG-AFTRA represents. If a studio in the AMPTP begins producing small dramas on “more than a trial basis,” the union says it may reach out to begin negotiating terms and conditions of employment. More details, such as remaining increases and an enhancement to the Guild Success Reward Fund, are available in the Guild’s summary of its agreement.
The union reached this tentative agreement with AMPTP on May 2 after negotiations over several months. Talks on the guild side were led by SAG-AFTRA national executive director Crabtree-Ireland, while AMPTP president Greg Hessinger chaired the studio and streamer discussions.
The deal-making stakes were high for the performers’ union, considering that generative AI tools had improved dramatically since the union first enshrined its protections against the technology in 2023. Moreover, the business downturn that followed the actors’ strike in 2023 had severely hurt performers’ bank accounts, and the union sought improved member compensation in this round of talks.
In a statement issued Monday, SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin called the agreement “a very strong deal that is contingent on 2023 gains.” He added: “I am proud and happy to send it to the members with my full support for its ratification.”
