The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is on strike after talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed to produce a new labor contract. In a statement to NPR, SAG-AFTRA said streaming services have "eroded" the way actors get paid and accused studios of refusing to acknowledge "enormous shifts in the industry and economy."
Prior to the strike's Thursday commencement, 98% of SAG-AFTRA's members had already authorized a strike. Additionally, more than 300 Hollywood stars, like Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and SAG-AFTRA's president, Fran Drescher, penned a letter to the union's Leadership and Negotiating Committee threatening to picket outside if their demands aren't met. "We hope you've heard the message from us: This is an unprecedented inflection point in our industry, and what might be considered a good deal in any other years is simply not enough," the letter states, per Rolling Stone. "We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom, and the power of our union have all been undermined in the last decade. We need to reverse those trajectories."
For the first time in 63 years, Hollywood is in the midst of a dual strike, after the Writers Guild of America's strike began on May 2. (Salon's unionized employees are represented by the WGA East.) Members of SAG-AFTRA are seeking fair compensation, limits on the use of "self-tape" auditions and protection of their basic rights, especially as artificial intelligence threatens to replace members and their work.
