Talks broke down between actors and Hollywood studios late Wednesday, killing any hope that the three-month strike by performers would end anytime soon.
The studios announced that they had suspended contract negotiations, saying the gulf between the two sides was too great to allow them to continue, despite an offer as good as the one that recently ended the writers’ strike.
The actors’ union denounced the “bullying tactics” of their opponents and said they were abusing their offer.
On Oct. 2, for the first time since the strike began on July 14, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists resumed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios, streaming services and production companies in strike talks.
When negotiations resumed with the writers last month, their strike ended five days later, but similar progress was not made with the actors’ union.
Contract negotiations between the actor and the Hollywood studio have been suspended, according to the studio in an announcement.ZUMAPRESS.com
The studios left the talks after seeing the actor’s latest proposal on Wednesday.
“It is clear that the gap between AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and the conversation is no longer moving us in a productive direction,” AMPTP said in a statement.
SAG-AFTRA’s proposal would cost companies an additional $800 million a year and create an “untenable economic burden,” the statement said.
Since the studio’s latest proposal with the actor on Wednesday, talks have reportedly fizzled out. Reuters
In a letter to members sent early Thursday, SAG AFTRA said the figure was overestimated by 60%. The union said its negotiators were “very disappointed” the studio had broken off talks.
“We have negotiated with them in good faith,” the letter reads, “despite the fact that last week they made an offer that, shockingly, was worth less than what they had proposed before the strike began.”
Actors have gone on strike over issues including pay rises for streaming programming and control over the use of their images produced by artificial intelligence.
The actors’ union condemned the “bullying tactics” of their opponents, as the union said its negotiators were “very disappointed” over the breakdown in talks.REUTERS
AMPTP insists its offer is as generous as the one that ended the writers’ strike and brought a new contract to the directors’ union earlier this year.
But the union’s letter to actors said the company “refuses to protect performers from being replaced by AI, they refuse to raise your wages to keep up with inflation, and they refuse to share a fraction of the huge revenue that YOUR work generates for them.”
From the beginning, the actors’ discussion was not like the momentum that drove the night and weekend marathon sessions of the writer’s strike and finished the work.
Writers Matthew Weiner, left, and Semi Chellas carry signs at a picket line outside Netflix on Sept. 27, 2023, in Los Angeles. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Actors and studios have taken days off after resuming, and there have been no reports of meaningful progress despite direct involvement from studio heads including Disney and Netflix as has been the case in writers’ strikes.
However, the writers had their own false start in the negotiations. A month before the successful talks, the initial attempt to restart ended after only a few days.
Members of the Writers Guild of America voted almost unanimously to ratify their new contracts on Monday.
Their leaders touted their agreement as achieving much of what they had sought when they went on strike nearly five months earlier.
They declared their strike over, and sent the writers back to work, on September 26.
The late-night talk show returns to the air in a week, and other shows including “Saturday Night Live” will soon follow.
But without actors, the production of scripted shows and films would be on hold forever.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
