SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood studios have extended negotiations on the next film and TV deal for another week, the parties revealed Friday.
The Performers Union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of companies like Netflix and Paramount, issued a short joint press release indicating their talks will continue. Both remain under a media blackout during the negotiations that began on February 9.
The two sides are racing against time as the AMPTP is scheduled to begin negotiations with a separate union, the Writers Guild of America, on March 16. However, if SAG-AFTRA and the administration do not reach an agreement by then, they have made room in their schedules for an additional bargaining period before the union deal expires on June 30.
Industry watchers are paying close attention to this year’s talks since they are the first to be held since the union’s 118-day strike in 2023, which brought the industry to a grinding halt as actors withheld work alongside striking writers.
While SAG-AFTRA does not typically disclose its negotiating priorities publicly, it is clear that boosting income will be a key goal. “People need their wages; they have a hard time qualifying for health care. They need the cost of living and inflation [adjustments]. “People need to make more money,” union president Sean Astin previously said. THR.
Furthermore, developments in generative AI have sparked significant concern among union workers. SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has previously indicated that he would like to create terms in the contract where using artificial performers like Tilly Norwood would be just as expensive as human performers.
“In my opinion, if synthetics cost the same as humans, they would choose humans every time,” Crabtree-Ireland said in January.
The labor group, like the WGA and the Administrators Guild of America, is also likely to focus on maintaining its health plan stability after business declines and amid rising health care inflation.
Whether a strike is possible is another question. Crabtree-Ireland did not rule out the possibility but stressed that he did not believe another layoff would be necessary. “Bargaining contracts are a regular and structured way for unions and companies to address our labor relations,” he and Astin wrote in a letter to members in December. “It doesn’t have to be a dramatic process.”
