On July 14 of 2023, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, (SAG-AFTRA), as well as the Writers Guild of America (WGA), went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers,(AMPTP). These strikes were started to help the actors and writers for major movies and tv shows to get updated standard contracts that “address modern issues” such as income erosion, Artificial Intelligence (AI) exploitation and “abusive self-tape demands”.
The strikes have been taking place since then, with feedback coming from the AMPTP being mostly negative in regards to the updating of the standard contracts for actors, however, recently the writers portion of the strikes have ended after 148 days, on Wednesday Sept.27, 2023. These strikes came as a result of updated terms from the AMPTP, agreed to by the WGA. These terms include but are not limited to the protection of writers scripts from the influence of AI on writing and editing, as well as a scale for streaming pay based on how well the writer’s show performs on a given streaming service.
The actor’s strikes, however, are still going. The SAG-AFTRA organization has continued to promote these strikes, as the AMPTP have not been willing to cooperate with them as well as they have with the WGA.
According to SAG-AFTRA Strike page, “We need transformative contracts, yet remain far apart on the most critical issues that affect the very survival of our profession. Specifically, we need fair compensation that accounts for inflation, revenue sharing on top of residuals, protection from AI technology, and updates to our pension and health contribution caps, which haven’t been changed in decades.” Since the AMPTP haven’t been willing to negotiate fairly with the SAG-AFTRA strikers. One could see these strikes lasting a lot longer than those of the Writers Guild of America.
According to the page, “Here’s the simple truth: We’re up against a system where those in charge of multibillion-dollar media conglomerates are rewarded for exploiting workers. We moved on some things, but from day one they wouldn’t meaningfully engage on the most critical issues.”