2023-07-18 19:48:00
The union representing striking actors released a document late Monday detailing the status of its negotiations with studios, indicating wide gulfs between the two sides on key issues such as wage increases and artificial intelligence technology, though also signs of compromise in some areas before talks collapsed late last week.
The document suggests that the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists was seeking an expansive slate of concessions from studios, such as profit-sharing on streaming projects and higher compensation for dry-cleaning bills. “We need transformative contracts, yet remain far apart on the most critical issues that affect the very survival of our profession,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement. “This is why we’re on strike.”
But a spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Scott Rowe, dismissed the document as a “press release” that “deliberately [distorts] the offers made by AMPTP,” including last-minute proposals that studios offered actors during the final round of talks. “The deal that SAG-AFTRA walked away from on July 12 is worth more than $1 billion in wage increases, pension & health contributions and residual increases and includes first-of-their-kind protections over its three-year term, including expressly with respect to AI,” he said.
The AMPTP, which represents major studios such as Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon and Netflix in the negotiations, released its own document outlining its proposals late last week, after SAG-AFTRA announced that its strike and a self-imposed media blackout on the two sides expired. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. The Post’s interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, sits on Amazon’s board.)
Here’s where SAG-AFTRA says it stood with the AMPTP on major issues just before talks broke down:
1689711643
#SAGAFTRA #actors #AMPTP #studios #proposed #negotiations