The union, which represents striking actors, released a document late Monday detailing the status of its negotiations with the studios. It pointed to major differences between the two sides on key issues such as wage increases and artificial intelligence, but also showed signs of compromise in some areas before talks broke down late last week.
The document reveals that the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists sought a lengthy list of concessions from studios, including profit-sharing on streaming projects and increased compensation for dry cleaning bills. “We need transformative contracts but remain distant on the most critical issues affecting the survival of our profession,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement. “That’s why we’re on strike.”
But a spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Scott Rowe, dismissed the document as a “press release” that was “deliberate.” [distorts] AMPTP’s offers,” including last-minute proposals the studios made to the actors during the last round of talks. “The deal, which SAG-AFTRA abandoned on July 12, is valued at more than $1 billion in wage increases, pension and health insurance contributions, and residual increases, and includes unique protections over the three-year term, also expressly with respect to the AI,” he said.
The AMPTP, which represents major studios including Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon and Netflix in the negotiations, released its own document outlining its proposals late last week, after SAG-AFTRA announced their strike and a self-imposed media lockdown the two sides are in expired. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. The Post’s interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board of directors.)
Here’s where SAG-AFTRA says it stood with the AMPTP on key issues just before talks broke down: