After 118 days, the SAG-AFTRA Strike finally came to an end when the acting union agreed to the deal put forth by the AMPTP, and there were important reasons why it was the longest strike between actors and major Hollywood studios in history. Even with several 2024 films delayed by the SAG-AFTRA strike, Union President Fran Drescher championed the livelihood of working actors who were working in unsustainable conditions in the streaming era, where the looming threat of AI, loss of streaming residuals, and loss of a robust healthcare fund created an environment that made it increasingly difficult to tell meaningful stories and pay the bills.
One of her biggest points of contention was that the major studios were building their revenue streams on the backs of actors who were not properly rewarded. In the end, SAG-AFTRA members ended up with AI protection in place, and accepting a streaming bonus system not dissimilar to the one achieved after the WGA Strike, which will see that financial compensation is distributed broadly to actors in a hybrid model that combines a performance-based bonus for those involved in a range of streaming series, not just the most popular. While the union didn’t get everything it wanted, it created a strong infrastructure for future change.
Streaming & AI Are Non-Negotiable Issues For SAG-AFTRA
SAG-AFTRA Had To Compromise To Secure These
Streaming residuals and AI were non-negotiable issues for SAG-AFTRA. Actors used to receive royalties from series both in syndication and then in reruns, but with streaming, they received paltry compensation by comparison, whether a viewer watched Friends for the 20th time or the latest season of Stranger Things. As far as AI was concerned, studios wanted to pay actors a flat fee for a scan of their likeness and then utilize their image in perpetuity. Now, a performer may decide to be scanned, but studios must secure consent and offer compensation every time it’s used, including from the estates of deceased actors who get brought back to life with CGI.
SAG-AFTRA’s new contract is worth $1 billion over three years, but unfortunately, union president Fran Drescher had to accept a compromise on one of her top priorities; a share of revenue from each streaming platform. Drescher first sought 2% of streaming revenue, then %1 (or about $500 million a year), but finally settled on a “streaming participation bonus” that gave the union $40 million annually. Under similar terms to the WGA deal, actors involved in successful streaming shows (20% of a streaming platform’s subscriber base in the first 90 days) will get a 100% bonus on their standard residual, with some going to a joint fund administered by the union.
Striking Actors Gained Momentum Thanks To The Writers Strike
The WGA Also Stood Against AI
The WGA Strike, which represented 11,500 screenwriters, went on from May 2nd to September 27th, 2023, and inspired SAG-AFTRA to strike for their own needs. For the first time in history, SAG-AFTRA stood in solidarity with the WGA and went on strike together, and even after the WGA Strike concluded, SAG-AFTRA held firm for their demands to be met. There was an evident and palpable power in numbers, particularly against major Hollywood studios that were struggling to ramp up production to pre-Covid levels.
The WGA was concerned with AI being used (particularly without screenwriters’ knowledge) to alter work, the dwindling number of writers in the writer’s rooms for even the most popular movies and TV shows (supplemented with AI), and the lack of strong financial compensation that lead to the sort of residuals the studios enjoyed, but the writers did not receive. As it turned out, with the concerns about AI, streaming residuals, and fair contributions by employers to their healthcare and retirement funds, there was plenty of overlap between the focus that the two unions were championing.
The Studios & AMPTP Completely Lost The PR War
America Stands With Labor Unions
While the AMPTP might have thought it was calling SAG-AFTRA’s bluff by delivering it the “final” and “best” deal Monday, highly suspecting that the coalition of actors would take the deal unanimously, it might not have realized how much it lost the PR war that had been waging for 118 days. More than ever before, American people have been behind labor unions, particularly in recent decades. Adding fuel to the fire, prominent studio heads indicated that their strategy was to wait out the actors (as they had stated previously with the WGA strike of writers) until they caved, assuming that actors would cross the picket line.
As the members of SAG-AFTRA proved, even when they could no longer pay rent or bills, they held a united front in the face of intimidating opposition. They didn’t even cave when A-list actors like George Clooney, Ben Affleck, and Scarlett Johansson created a cohort to appease the AMPTP by throwing money at the problem. AMPTP ended up looking the worse for wear, while SAG-AFTRA remains a sterling example of labor resilience and artistic integrity by holding out for a good deal that will be the foundation for an even better one when negotiations resume in 2026.
