SAG-AFTRA blasts studio “greed” as Hollywood actors’ strike begins

US actors’ union SAG-AFTRA has now formally gone on strike, after its board unanimously voted to cease work for the first time in decades.

The strike officially began just after midnight today, Pacific Time, in Los Angeles, following a failed last-ditch attempt to resolve the contract dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the entity that represents major studios and streamers, including Amazon, Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros. Discovery.

SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000 members now join the WGA on the picket line, marking the first time that both guilds have been on strike together since 1960.

The WGA has been on strike for more than two months already, with actors and writers both seeking assurances of adequate compensation from residuals payments when their work goes to streaming services, as well as protections amid the increasing use of artificial intelligence, which they fear could be used to replace them in future.

Fran Drescher’s fiery speech

They plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history

Fran Drescher

In a press conference yesterday, following the SAG-AFTRA board vote, union president Fran Drescher criticised Hollywood studios in a fiery speech that has since gone viral.

“I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.”

Drescher said that studios had made “Wall Street and greed their priority” and said: “they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run.”

“We are the victims here. We are being victimised by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us.

SAG-AFTRA members have been told by the union to halt any work connected to productions, including premieres and promotion of projects on social media.

The stars of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, including Matt Damon and Florence Pugh, were among those who showed their solidarity, walking out of the London premiere of the film yesterday as the strike was formally announced.

The AMPTP offer

The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry

AMPTP

“A strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life,” responded the AMPTP in a statement after the strike began. “The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”

The AMPTP said that its deal included “historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, and a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.”

Sharing further details of the deal that it said SAG-AFTRA had rejected, the AMPTP revealed the offer included a 76% increase in high budget SVOD foreign residuals, as well as a 58% increase in salaries for major role (guest star) performers wages on high budget SVOD shows and an 11% pay increase in year one for background actors, stand-ins and photo doubles.

US networks had already begun to order more unscripted shows to minimise gaps in TV schedules as a result of the WGA strike, and with an industry-wide action now in effect, the picture is looking bleak for the US scripted sector.