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EXCLUSIVE: As talks between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP continue this week, stakeholders are gaining a head start on planning pickets should negotiations end in a stalemate at midnight on July 12 and a double strike by the Writers’ side lead guild.
This comes after SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP agreed on Friday to extend their current film and television deal to continue negotiations on a new deal. We hear there have been talks both over the weekend and on Monday.
Deadline learns that actors are working on picket signs, ordering t-shirts, and compiling a roster of property managers and coordinators. WGA captains and coordinators provided the logistical backbone of the writers’ strike, now in its 65th day, organizing daily actions outside of the Los Angeles and New York City studios.
Although SAG-AFTRA has not yet formally contacted the WGA to discuss plans and logistics, Deadline understands that a number of WGA members have individually offered to assist the SAG-AFTRA Captains and Coordinators as needed . It is expected that SAG-AFTRA will join the WGA at established studio pickets, which would require the writers to also hire one additional staff member at each location.
Should SAG-AFTRA members, who voted 98% in favor of authorizing a strike if the leadership cannot reach an acceptable agreement, agree to a strike, they are expected to take to the streets on Thursday morning, July 13th.
We understand that SAG-AFTRA emailed its members over the long July 4th weekend asking them to join the picket line at CBS Radford on Wednesday, which we understand resulted in a large turnout. We’ve heard of guild staffers showing up and setting up their own table outside of the WGA without telling the writers their plans, although they were welcomed with open arms.
A strike between the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild (excluding AFTRA, which merged with SAG in 2012) is not unprecedented, but is still quite rare. In 1960, the WGA was in the midst of a five-month strike when SAG President Ronald Regan called the Actors Guild’s own strike.
A WGA member source told Deadline: “The writers have gone it alone on 7 out of 8 strikes and won every one of them.” We’ll get the deal we need this time too, but we’d welcome them on the phone. The actors who joined us would be just as historic as they were in 1960, when simultaneous strikes secured our health care and our pensions. The WGA has long known that studios aren’t giving up without a fight, which means they’re leaving, and it appears the SAG-AFTRA membership is now doing the same. Members seem ready to walk the line.”
Some in the acting community fear the leadership will negotiate a deal that “doesn’t cut it right,” according to a letter signed by a number of celebrities including Meryl Streep, Amy Schumer and Charlize Theron.
“We hope, on behalf of their members, that this time their leadership is aware of the moment ahead. “The last thing any union wants to be in the country right now is the DGA,” added the WGA member.
Deadline has contacted SAG-AFTRA for official comment.