SAG-AFTRA’s membership has voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike authorization, maximizing the guild’s influence ahead of negotiations that begin Wednesday.
The guild announced Monday evening that 97.91% of voting members supported the authorization. Turnout was 47.69%.
The vote comes as the Writers Guild of America strike enters its sixth week. Many SAG-AFTRA members have already joined WGA members walking along the picket lines. The leaders of both guilds have expressed their solidarity with each other several times this year.
The writers’ strike has led to a sharp drop in production, especially in television. If SAG-AFTRA goes on strike, the remaining film and TV production will cease immediately. The union represents 160,000 artists.
SAG-AFTRA is pursuing an agenda that includes restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence, higher streaming residuals, and restrictions on self-recorded auditions.
Fran Drescher, President of SAG-AFTRA, said in a statement that the vote sends a message of “strength and solidarity”. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, executive director of the guild, said it indicates “it’s time for an evolution in this contract.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the studios, issued a succinct response: “We are approaching these negotiations with the goal of reaching a new agreement that will be beneficial to SAG-AFTRA members and the industry at large.”
The vote comes two days after the Directors Guild of America announced a preliminary agreement on his new three-year contract. The deal includes wage increases and a 76% increase in international residuals on the largest platforms, according to a DGA summary.
Crabtree-Ireland congratulated the DGA on reaching a deal, but added that the artists’ union will not be bound by the terms negotiated by the directors.
The vote is an unusually aggressive move by SAG-AFTRA, which typically resolves its contracts with the AMPTP without resorting to a strike threat. In 2017, the guild did threaten to vote to approve the strike in the final days of talks, but held off once the deal was finalized.
The union went on strike against the video game industry from 2016 to 2017 and also against commercial producers in 2000. But since 1980, the union has not gone on strike against the film and TV industry. In that year, SAG and AFTRA—then unions split—went on strike for 94 days over remnants of pay-TV and videocassettes.
In 1986, the unions voted 86.8% for a strike permit on the AMPTP contract, but a deal was reached without a strike.
In 2008 and 2009, SAG, still a separate union, broke internally over a plan to declare a strike authorization. The executive director who insisted was ousted and a deal was finally reached without resorting to a strike vote. The two guilds merged in 2012.