SAG-AFTRA‘s National Board on November 10 approved the tentative new three-year TV/Theatrical contract agreed upon this week between the guild’s negotiating committee and the AMPTP, and the guild has now released details about that $1.11 billion contract won for its members during a strike that lasted 118 days.
Actors will now get raises to minimum wages of 7 percent in the first year, they’ll have AI protections that require consent for performers getting digital scans on each film, as well as a requirement that the studios must get consent from an estate if an actor has died, and for the first time, a “streaming participation bonus” that’s worth an estimated $40 million per year ($120 million throughout the full term of the deal), which gives added residuals for successful shows and movies released through streaming.
Other gains include higher caps for the pension and health plans, guard rails around self-taped auditions, higher compensation for background performers, makeup and hairstyling requirements for performers of diverse hair and skin types, a requirement for intimacy coordinators, new language for motion capture performers, and much more. The full contract summary will be released publicly on Monday morning.
Guild leaders championed the deal in a press conference fro SAG-AFTRA headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday as the largest deal in the industry’s history. They acknowledged that they did not get everything they wanted from the onset, and 86 percent of the National Board voted to approve the contract and send it to members. But SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said the deal managed to open up a new “pocket” of revenue from which members could be paid and that the gains made here will grow in future negotiations.
“This is an ongoing living thing, a contract. We’re not over. We’re only just beginning,” she said Friday.
“We collectively feel this deal was made at the point it should’ve been made. It achieves the absolute best,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the head of the negotiating committee, said.
The guild also announced Friday members will be able to vote on the contract starting Tuesday and have 21 days until the first week of December to ratify the new contract. SAG-AFTRA will host informational meetings about the new contract over the next several days and weeks.
The guild touted its minimum wage increases as “above-pattern.” That’s because both the Directors Guild and Writers Guild wound up with raises of just 5 percent in the first year. The actors received raises of 7-4-3 across the terms of the contract, and background performers got even higher wages of 11-4-4. The guild originally demanded 11 percent raises in the first year for all performers when the strike began.
As with the writers, AI was the major sticking point into the final days of the strike, with the negotiating committee fighting for specific protections over the use of generative artificial intelligence for creating synthetic performers up until the 11th hour and came together on literally the last day of talks. Drescher said that would be a “dealbreaker” if those specific protections were not achieved.
The actors’ language around AI is far stronger than what the writers got in their deal, and certainly more than the directors. SAG-AFTRA says that employers have to be specific about how an AI model is being used, not just informed through boilerplate language. They’re required to notify the guild and performer when AI is being used. Actors will be paid equivalent to how their digital replica is being used. Background actors will also be protected from having their likeness used without their explicit consent. It even prevents the studios from no longer hiring background actors by using AI instead. And if a fake, synthetic performer is created using features belonging to a specific actor, the studio must get that actor’s consent as well.
Also a big point of contention throughout negotiations was over bonuses for streaming, which the guild is now referring to as a “streaming participation bonus.” Here’s how it works: The top 20% of streaming shows and movies (in the first 90 days on the service) generate a 100 percent bonus based on actor’s existing residuals (which have also gone up in this contract). 75 percent of that money goes to the actor on that successful show, while the remaining 25 percent is re-distributed in a fund administered by the employers and the union. The idea is that everyone can share in a little bit of the wealth generated by the projects making the most money for the streamers.
The guild originally wanted a revenue sharing model, where members would get a flat percentage of all streaming revenue. The AMPTP refused to budge on that point, and they walked away from the table when the guild pivoted to offer a fee of 57 cents per subscriber. The aim was to get the whole membership paid, not just a few. And even though this model is a lot closer to the writers’ own bonus model (which gives a 50 percent bonus residual to the writers of the top streaming shows and movies), it approximates the way in which the guild wanted its members paid in the first place.
Drescher during the press conference said the key goal was to “get into another pocket,” to find a new revenue stream and get additional money for members that wasn’t enshrined in the contract before. But from the beginning, but that the AMPTP repeatedly rebuked any attempt to establish a new form of compensation. It was only until they spoke directly with the CEOs of the member companies that they began to make progress. Drescher said the fund was also one of the last things to come together in talks, and the negotiating committee refused to vote on the deal until they were certain every dollar of the $1.11 billion deal was accounted for.
Drescher, in remarks ahead of contract details being revealed, slammed some of her coverage in the press and leaks from AMPTP members about her demeanor in the negotiating room that were “weaponized” to discredit her. She said she was made out to be “overly aggressive” or “frivolous” and insinuated sexism by saying that Crabtree-Ireland’s demeanor wasn’t criticized in the same way.
