Actors and Hollywood Studios ‘Remain Far Apart’ on Crucial Issues

As tens of hundreds of actors go into their fifth day of a strike versus the Hollywood studios, the 2 sides have proven no indicators of returning to the bargaining desk — and are even exchanging barbed messages that underscore how far aside they’re.

Late Monday, management of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, despatched members a 12-page memo laying out its calls for and the studios’ counterproposals. They “remain far apart on the most critical issues that affect the very survival of our profession,” the word mentioned.

“We marched ahead because they intentionally dragged their feet,” it continued.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that bargains on behalf of the studios, answered with a word to the news media arguing that the message from the union “deliberately distorts” the provides it had made.

“A strike is not the outcome we wanted,” the alliance mentioned. “For SAG-AFTRA to assert that we have not been responsive to the needs of its membership is disingenuous at best.”

Thousands of Hollywood actors went on strike on Friday after failing to succeed in a brand new contract with the foremost studios, together with old-line corporations like Paramount, Universal and Disney and tech giants like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

The actors joined 11,500 screenwriters who went on strike 78 days in the past, the primary time each unions had walked out on the identical time since 1960. The writers haven’t returned to the bargaining desk with the studios since their negotiations collapsed in early May.

SAG-AFTRA’s word mentioned the 2 sides remained far aside on a number of key points, together with compensation, guardrails in opposition to synthetic intelligence, and well being care and pension prices.

The union’s management mentioned it had requested for 11 p.c wage will increase within the first yr of a brand new contract; the studios got here again with a suggestion of 5 p.c, the union mentioned.

When it involves synthetic intelligence, the union’s leaders mentioned they’d argued for quite a lot of provisions to guard them “when a ‘digital replica’ is made or our performance is changed using A.I.”

They mentioned the studio alliance “failed to address many vital concerns, leaving principal performers and background actors vulnerable to having most of their work replaced by digital replicas.”

The studios mentioned that the union’s word to its members “fails to include the proposals offered verbally” throughout negotiations, and that its general package deal was price greater than $1 billion in wage will increase, enhancements on residuals (a kind of royalty) and well being care contributions.

Regarding synthetic intelligence, the studios mentioned they’d provided a “groundbreaking proposal, which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.”

Union management despatched out a chart laying out every proposal and the studios’ response. Over greater than two dozen proposals, the studio response amounted to at least one phrase, in accordance with the union: “Rejected.”

“So who’s making the T-Shirt that says ‘Rejected’?” the actress Senta Moses posted on Twitter.

“This is why we’re on strike,” the union word mentioned. “The A.M.P.T.P. thinks we will relent, but the will of our membership has never been stronger. We have the resolve and unity needed to defend our rights.”