SAG-AFTRA has agreed to engage a federal mediation agency in its ongoing negotiations with the studios and streamers — but is declining to extend those talks beyond July 12.
In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday evening, the union said that “We will not be distracted from negotiating in good faith to secure a fair and just deal by the expiration of our agreement.” It added, “We are committed to the negotiating process and will explore and exhaust every possible opportunity to make a deal, however we are not confident that the employers have any intention of bargaining toward an agreement.”
The announcement comes just hours after news emerged that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) had requested services from the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, the federal agency tasked with helping to resolve labor disputes. The request came after several high-level executives including Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros.-Discovery chief David Zaslav, Disney Entertainment co-chairmen Dana Walden and Alan Bergman surfaced the idea of federal intervention on calls on Monday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed. The decision appeared to be a last-minute attempt to save negotiations and/or extend them.
But in its statement on Monday, SAG-AFTRA threw cold water on what it described as a purposeful leak to Variety earlier in the day by what it claimed was “by the CEOs and their ‘anonymous sources’ before our negotiators were even told of the request for mediation.” The union added, “The AMPTP has abused our trust and damaged the respect we have for them in this process. We will not be manipulated by this cynical ploy to engineer an extension when the companies have had more than enough time to make a fair deal.”
As the clock ticks down to the TV/theatrical contracts’ current expiration date of Wednesday at 11:59 p.m., the union has a strike authorization vote in hand to be able to call a strike as early at Thursday. The union resurfaced this fact in its statement on Tuesday: “Time is running out,” SAG-AFTRA stated.
The two parties have been hashing out a new three-year contract covering around 160,000 union members since June 7, with both agreeing to one extension on June 30 in order to keep discussions moving. Early on in the talks, union president Fran Drescher and national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland struck a cheery tone about the discussions, calling them “extremely productive,” while on June 30 the union’s TV/theatrical negotiating committee described the timeline extension as being agreed to “in order to exhaust every opportunity to achieve the righteous contract we all demand and deserve.”
Tuesday’s statement marks a definite shift in tone from the union about the state of the relationship with the studios and streamers. The declaration is also in line with significant preparations that the union has made in recent days toward a potential strike. On Monday, top SAG-AFTRA leaders met with major PR firms and with hundreds of agents to discuss how a potential strike could play out, and what rules might look like for members. Said one agent who was on the Monday representatives call of SAG-AFTRA leaders’ tone towards a potential strike: “They were not speaking in conditional sentences.”
