Why a SAG-AFTRA Strike Memo Is Blowing Up Twitter

As the Hollywood actors strike enters its second week, SAG-AFTRA is turning up the heat on the major studios. On Monday evening, the actors union shared a detailed statement laying out how “far apart” the union remains from the major studios—which it alleges “are committed to prioritizing shareholders and Wall Street”—when it comes to issues like wage increases and AI.

The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May, and last week, Hollywood’s actors joined writers on the picket line. In its statement this week, SAG-AFTRA told its members, “We’re up against a system where those in charge of multibillion-dollar media conglomerates are rewarded for exploiting workers.”

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Meanwhile, in its own release on Monday, the AMPTP claimed that “SAG-AFTRA continues to mischaracterize the negotiations.” The studios say that their “goal from day one has been to come to a mutually beneficial agreement with SAG-AFTRA. ... For SAG-AFTRA to assert that we have not been responsive to the needs of its membership is disingenuous at best.”

Screenshots of SAG-AFTRA’s statement—specifically, a memo in which the union summarizes the two parties’ bargaining positions—have been making the rounds on Twitter, as striking workers stew over a number of provisions that the AMPTP allegedly rejected.

SAG-AFTRA alleges that the AMPTP rejected a proposal that would have increased damages to counteract what the union calls “the unacceptable trend of egregiously late payments.”

“Though they admit that their companies consistently pay late,” the release says, “they have stated that they still will not pay on time, even with increased penalties.”

The AMPTP’s statement claims that SAG-AFTRA’s press release “deliberately distort[s] the offers made by AMPTP” and that it “also fails to include the proposals offered verbally to SAG-AFTRA leadership on July 12.”

On Tuesday, Rob Forman—a WGA member currently campaigning to join its Board of Directors—tweeted that the late payment dispute “has such blatantly cartoonish evil capitalist pig energy I had to read it twice.”

The AMPTP also allegedly rejected two proposals related to actor safety—one to increase penalties for productions that fail to provide meal breaks during actors’ typically long workdays, and another that would’ve hiked penalties for those that refuse to give performers adequate rest days between work days.

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SAG-AFTRA’s release also reiterated its allegation that studios want to use AI “to scan a background performer’s image, pay them for a half a day’s labor, and then use an individual’s likeness for any purpose forever without their consent.”

In its own statement, the AMPTP writes that its most recent offer included a “[g]roundbreaking AI 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.”

In a statement provided to The Daily Beast, an AMPTP spokesperson added: “The claim made by SAG-AFTRA leadership that the digital replicas of background actors may be used in perpetuity with no consent or compensation is false. In fact, the current AMPTP proposal only permits a company to use the digital replica of a background actor in the motion picture for which the background actor is employed. Any other use requires the background actor’s consent and bargaining for the use, subject to a minimum payment.”

In addition to its public statement, Variety reports that SAG-AFTRA held an informational meeting on Monday afternoon, and that more than 760 members—including Lupita Nyong’o, Melissa McCarthy, Lucy Liu, and Laverne Cox—signed on. There, a one-sheet of talking points outlined what the union believes is at stake.

“Without a transformative change in SAG-AFTRA’s current contract with the AMPTP,” the union wrote, “the acting profession will no longer be an option for future generations of performers, and actors already working in the industry will need to pursue other careers in order to survive.”