SAG-AFTRA and the studios will continue to talk past the midnight Friday contract deadline as they continue to disagree on issues such as streaming residues and artificial intelligence.
The union has agreed to extend the contract until July 12. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and SAG-AFTRA made the announcement in a joint statement just before 7 p.m. Friday.
In a message to its members, SAG-AFTRA said the leadership had unanimously decided to extend the contract “to exhaust every opportunity to achieve the just contract we all demand and deserve.”
“No one should confuse this expansion with weakness,” the union leaders said. “We see you. We hear you. We are you.”
The two sides are expected to meet again on Saturday, though it’s possible they’ll take a few days off for the holiday after that.
Negotiations have been underway since June 7, and the two sides have exchanged proposals and held lengthy meetings in recent days. But sources have said they remain far apart on several key points.
The union, which represents 160,000 artists, could still call a strike if talks fail.
In a letter this week, more than 1,000 members urged union leaders to strike if they fail to reach a “transformative deal.”
In a video message last weekend, union president Fran Drescher said the talks had been “extremely productive” and vowed to reach a “groundbreaking” agreement.
SAG-AFTRA is looking for comprehensive AI protections and a streaming residual formula that would pay a bonus for top-performing shows. The guild is also looking to bolster its retirement and health plans, which were forced to drastically increase eligibility requirements during the pandemic.
Many SAG-AFTRA members have already joined the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines as a show of solidarity. The WGA has been on strike for nearly two months and an actor’s strike would halt almost all scripted film and TV productions that have not yet been halted by the writers.
Some low-budget independent productions could be allowed to continue. But much overseas production – largely spared by the writers’ strike – would be shut down.
It is not uncommon for the SAG-AFTRA negotiations to run a few days past the deadline. In both 2014 and 2017, negotiators extended the talks for an additional three days.
In this case, SAG-AFTRA had a short window of time to negotiate – just three weeks and two days. The conversations usually last at least a full month, and sometimes longer. The union negotiators also came to the table with an unusually long agenda.
SAG-AFTRA has not called a strike on its basic film and TV contract since 1980. The strike lasted 94 days. Then, as now, residual payments were a major problem.
The union has proposed using Parrot Analytics, an outside data company, to measure the success of shows, with the most popular shows generating higher residue. The studios, represented by the AMPTP, have opposed that idea. The studios have also refused to base compensation on their own viewing statistics, which are considered proprietary and not shared with creators.
The union does not want to prohibit the use of AI to generate performances. But it tries to require that any use of an actor’s image and likeness be with that actor’s permission and for a fee. The union is also trying to restrict AI training.