After four months of picketing, stand-offs, and occasionally negotiations, the actors’ strike is tentatively coming to an end.
SAG-AFTRA announced Wednesday that the negotiating committee voted to accept a proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which will be put to membership for official ratification after the deal is approved by the SAG-AFTRA National Board.
“As of 12:01 am on November 9, our strike is officially suspended and all picket locations are closed,” the committee shared in a statement, noting that their vote was unanimous.
Actors had been on strike since July 14 of this year, after a little over a month of negotiating with the studios failed to provide a deal the union was comfortable accepting. Combined with the Writers Guild of America strike, which began on May 2 and lasted until the final week of September, this meant that much of Hollywood was effectively shut down for over six months while the studios tried to starve a large sector of the talent that makes their business exist into submission.
The details of the contract have yet to be shared publicly, although the union has said the three-year deal is valued at over one billion dollars and addresses concerns actors had over minimum compensation, regulations surrounding AI, and income from streaming.
“We have arrived at a contract that will enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers,” they said. “Many thousands of performers now and into the future will benefit from this work.”
The agreement comes just days after the AMPTP claimed to have delivered their “last, best and final” offer—which the negotiating committee rejected, prompting the studios to go ahead and adjust that “final” offer after all.
Assuming the National Board and SAG-AFTRA membership approve the new contract, production is likely to resume shortly on major films and TV series where writing rooms had already started back up last month.
More immediately, we can expect to see actors return to promoting their current and upcoming projects, as the ban on discussing work related to struck companies has now been lifted.
