Negotiations between major entertainment studios and the union representing tens of thousands of actors have collapsed as both sides said they remained far apart on key issues.
The Alliance of Film and Television Producers, which is negotiating on behalf of the studios, said after a meeting on Wednesday that it had suspended talks because they were “no longer moving us in a productive direction.” SAG-AFTRA, the actors union that has been on strike since July, accused studio executives of “bullying tactics” and said in a statement early Thursday that the studios recently submitted an offer “that was shockingly worth less than…” They made a proposal before the strike began.”
The failure of the negotiations is a significant setback for the entertainment industry, which has been virtually at a standstill for months due to double strikes by actors and screenwriters. On Monday, more than 8,000 screenwriters agreed to a new three-year contract with the studio alliance, officially ending their months-long labor dispute. There was optimism that a deal with the actors would follow and Hollywood could soon come back to life.
But as actors continue to strike, most television and film productions remain suspended. The financial consequences were significant. California’s economy lost an estimated $5 billion. Tens of thousands of workers behind the scenes have been unemployed for months. The share prices of many major media companies have fallen and next year’s box office revenues are now in further danger.
Since the Writers Guild of America ended its strike late last month, there has been increasing confidence that television and film production could soon be back up and running. The television writers’ rooms were back in operation and pre-production plans for new films were confirmed. All that was left was for the studios and the actors to reach an agreement.
It is now unclear when the talks will resume.
“I really think the parties need to stay in negotiations until they get the deal done,” said Ivy Kagan Bierman, chair of the entertainment employment law department at Loeb & Loeb, a prominent Los Angeles law firm. “These repeated suspensions and delays are having a devastating impact not only on the guild and union members, but also on others within and outside the industry.”
Like their colleagues in the screenwriters’ guild, the leaders of the actors’ union have described this moment as “existential.” They are demanding wage increases and protective measures when using artificial intelligence. The actors have been on strike for 91 days now; Screenwriters recently returned to work after a 148-day strike. The last time both unions went on strike at the same time was in 1960.
When negotiations between the actors’ union and studios resumed last week – just days after the studios and writers reached a tentative agreement – it was the first time the sides had met since the actors’ strike on July 14. Five negotiating sessions were held, and many industry observers believed that the talks would soon lead to an agreement.
In a statement released early Thursday, the studio alliance said it had offered wage increases, “met nearly all of the union’s casting demands” and proposed additional protections around the use of AI. The alliance also said it had offered “the same terms as before.” Both the writers’ and directors’ unions ratified the contract regarding wage increases and streaming royalties.
However, the alliance also said that the actors’ union wanted an audience bonus that would “cost more than $800 million per year, which would impose an unsustainable economic burden.”
Wednesday’s meeting ended as scheduled in the afternoon, with both parties initially agreeing to return to the table Thursday morning, the union’s executive director and negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, said in a telephone interview on a picket line outside Netflix Los Angeles. Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said that a few hours later he heard from the alliance’s chief negotiator, Carol Lombardini, and two of the executives who had taken part in the talks that negotiations were being broken off because “they told.” We were told that they would not engage or agree to any proposals that were linked to the revenue streams.”
“Let me be clear: you gave up on these negotiations – not us,” Mr Crabtree-Ireland added.
The statement that talks had been suspended came hours after Donna Langley, chairman and chief content officer of NBCUniversal’s Studio Group, one of four top studio executives who attended each negotiating session, spoke at a Bloomberg conference in Los Angeles had. She promised to “dedicate as much time as necessary until we can find a solution and get the industry back on its feet and back to work.”
This hope did not last long. Appearing at the conference Thursday morning, Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos, one of four executives attending the bargaining sessions, called the union’s latest revenue-sharing proposal, which he called a “subscriber levy,” “a bridge, that goes too far.” .”
Mr Crabtree-Ireland said: “Their position was the only way they could keep talking if we gave them a whole new set of counters. “They will not respond to what we have given them. They just want us to go back and start over, and that’s not going to happen.”
The standoff was reminiscent of a contentious moment between the writers and studios during that five-month work hiatus.
On August 22, four top studio executives met – Ms. Langley; Mr. Sarandos; Walt Disney Company Chairman Robert A. Iger; and David Zaslav, executive director of Warner Bros. Discovery, met with the writers’ negotiating committee. Not much progress was made, and the alliance also decided to publicly announce its latest offer, which drew the ire of the authors. There were no more negotiations for three weeks.