SAG-AFTRA’s top negotiator has never done this before.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has worked for the union for most of his adult life. During this time he has become a master of details. He taught himself Spanish to work on an international intellectual property contract. He then negotiated with Telemundo, switching between Spanish and English to negotiate the first U.S. employment contract for telenovela actors.
But until this year he had never held contract negotiations with major film and television studios. As it turned out, his first year at the helm was also the first in 43 years that SAG-AFTRA went on strike over that contract. As a result, Crabtree-Ireland had to grow into a new public role.
He is no longer the advisor who sits behind the negotiators and provides all the answers. He is now the leader. As he ponders the final terms of an agreement to end the strike in Hollywood, the question arises: “Can he land the plane?”
The strike lasted longer than expected – 117 days since Tuesday. But it is by no means the longest or most arduous negotiation in which Crabtree-Ireland has been involved.
From scratch, it took 16 months to get a deal with Telemundo done.
The network had built a studio in Miami to produce Spanish-language scripted programming, primarily nighttime soap operas. But the actors in these shows had none of the protections that U.S. actors take for granted, such as residual payments and pension and health insurance contributions.
Much of Crabtree-Ireland’s work involved listening to stakeholders on the negotiating committee. One of the issues discussed was the lack of standard changing rooms. He would then translate those concerns into proposals that could be presented to Telemundo.
“He is a very patient person,” said Pablo Azar, chairman of the committee. “We actors would heat things up. We are more emotional. Duncan wasn’t emotional at all. He stayed calm and explained everything.”
Telemundo resisted many of the actors’ demands, warning that production could be moved to Mexico if SAG-AFTRA sought too high of a deal.
“It was a very long process,” said Ana Carolina Grajales, another member of the committee. “Nothing was taken for granted.”
She also remembered that Crabtree-Ireland had a talent for putting complicated topics into understandable language.
“As we negotiated, he found a way to express what we wanted,” she said.
She and Crabtree-Ireland now co-host the SAG-AFTRA podcast in Spanish.
At some point he thought he could become a professional diplomat. As a student at Georgetown, he studied international relations and was on his way to joining the U.S. Foreign Service.
But family considerations led him to pursue a different professional career. At the time, the government did not offer full spousal benefits to gay couples.
“That was a less enlightened time in our country,” Crabtree-Ireland said in an interview.
His husband would have had to follow him on missions abroad without a work permit or diplomatic passport. In an emergency, exfiltration would not be guaranteed.
“It just wasn’t a risk I could ask him to take,” he said.
Instead, he earned a law degree and worked briefly as a prosecutor before joining SAG-AFTRA in 2000. There he quickly rose to general counsel and devoted himself to international affairs. One of his main tasks was to represent the union in negotiations on the WIPO Beijing Treaty, which establishes intellectual property rights for artists.
John McGuire, a longtime SAG-AFTRA executive, said the job combines a strong moral component with a “pure intellectual challenge.”
“He was a natural for this area,” McGuire said. “He stood up for the underdog.”
In the interview, Crabtree-Ireland said some of his work at SAG-AFTRA stemmed from his previous interest in international affairs.
“Diplomacy and labor negotiations can certainly have some similar elements,” he said. The key to both, he said, is “to help resolve disputes through negotiation and discussion.”
His opponents, who prefer not to be named during sensitive negotiations, show him grudging respect. One of his key skills, one said, was “identifying problems.”
“Duncan is a masterful lawyer,” this person said, noting that he has a gift for combing through dense contract language and uncovering hidden gaps.
This talent was particularly useful in tackling the issue of artificial intelligence. Crabtree-Ireland became interested in the topic long before it became a hot topic this year and has been giving talks on the potential risks – and benefits – of AI for some time.
In recent weeks, the studio’s negotiators have become increasingly frustrated as SAG-AFTRA has advanced one hypothesis after another on the issue. From a studio perspective, some of the concerns seem a bit far-fetched.
But Crabtree-Ireland is also adept at finding solutions, said Gabrielle Carteris, the immediate past president of SAG-AFTRA. In 2021, she recommended him to succeed David White as the guild’s executive director.
“He’s a very compassionate person,” Carteris said. “He’s not a positional guy, which makes him a great leader. He is able to listen to everyone without forcing a behavior on them. He can listen to all sides and come up with a creative proposal that can really help us get to the endgame.”
The question now is whether he and the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee can get the deal across the finish line in the final meters.
“Ultimately, it’s the committees that make decisions,” said Azar, the chairman of the Telemundo negotiating committee. “We either agree to the proposals or reject them. Duncan would come with a proposal and the committee would say, “No, we don’t want that.” Then they have to create something new so we can approve it. That happened a lot.”
In other words, Crabtree-Ireland can only do so much.
“He’s the head, but he has a lot of people behind him,” Azar said. “He can’t just make decisions based on gut instinct.”