SAG-AFTRA Approves Historic Strike Ending Agreement

SAG-AFTRA negotiators have approved a tentative deal that will end the longest actors’ strike against movie and TV studios in Hollywood history.

In an announcement Wednesday, the union said the 118-day strike will officially end at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

The union’s negotiating committee approved the deal on a unanimous vote. The contract will go to the SAG-AFTRA national board for approval next Friday.

The two sides have spent the past several days finalizing the deal, which will see first-time protections for actors against artificial intelligence and a historic pay raise. The contract would see a raise of at least 7% — two percentage points higher than the raises received by the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America.

Kevin E. West, a member of the committee, said there were “tears of joy and happiness” in the committee room after the deal was approved.

“The final vote was unanimous. It’s a tough job to accomplish,” West said, speaking outside union headquarters. “It’s honestly been a long two weeks.”

He said the final deal was “not perfect – nothing is”, but reaching that conclusion was an “extraordinary” achievement.

Another committee member, Ben Whitehair, said the deal was a “massive win” for the union.

“It’s incredibly emotional,” he said. “We made history.”

He said the union achieved a “structural change” in compensation on streaming platforms. Although the union didn’t get everything it wanted, it said it would seek more in the next round of negotiations in 2026.

“When actors understand what’s been achieved, they’re going to be very happy,” Whitehair said.

Full details are expected to be released on Friday, after the national board votes.

Sean Austin, another committee member, said it was gratifying to be able to use the Zoom meeting to tell a meeting full of strike captains that “their sacrifice worked.”

“People put a lot of themselves into it. The toll it takes is real,” he said. “It is impossible to raise the level of emotion.”

As the contract neared completion, AI remained one of the most complex problems to solve. Duncan Crabtree Ireland, the union’s top negotiator, met with Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers CEO Carol Lombardini via Zoom on Wednesday to work out the final details.

In an appearance on CNBC on Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said he was “optimistic” that a deal could be reached soon. He said the financial impact of the strike had been “negligible” so far, but warned it could become more severe if no deal was reached soon.

“Obviously we’d like to try to preserve the summer of movies,” Iger said. “The whole industry is focused on this. We don’t have a lot of time to do it.”

AMPTP rolled out its “last, best and final” offer on Friday, which included an increased bonus for actors appearing on the most-watched streaming shows. The offer did not include a key union priority – a share of revenue from each streaming platform.

SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee spent 12 hours Sunday preparing its response. As of Monday, the union said differences remained on “several key items.” AMPTP amended its AI language at a meeting Monday night, which led to a 10-hour SAG-AFTRA committee meeting Tuesday.

The committee met again on Wednesday morning to consider it.

Union members would still have to vote to ratify a deal, a process that could take at least a week or more. But the strike has already been called off, meaning actors can return to work on Thursday.

After a two-week break, the talks resumed on October 24. Since then, there have been ongoing negotiations as the parties move toward an agreement.

Negotiations are usually left to staff at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that negotiates on behalf of major studios. But four CEOs — NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav and Disney’s Iger — have worked hand-in-hand over the past six weeks.

The CEOs first met with Writers Guild of America leadership in late September to hammer out the deal, and then met several times with SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland to hammer out the deal. An attempt can be made to end the strike. .

Most TV and film productions have been halted since the writers’ strike six months ago. The actors’ union joined them in mid-July, shutting down a relatively small number of independent film productions.

Over the past several weeks, some A-list actors have become increasingly frustrated with the lack of a deal. In an interview on “CBS Mornings” Tuesday, Tyler Perry pointedly urged the union to declare victory.

“It’s really important to know when we win,” he said.

And studios have warned that the 2023-24 TV season will be lost, and next summer’s theater season will be crippled if a tentative deal is not reached soon.

Before this year, the longest actors’ strike against TV and film companies had lasted 95 days in 1980. The 2023 strike eclipsed that mark on October 17.

Related: As strike season in Hollywood draws to a close, what are the lessons?