On Friday, July 14, 2023, the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guide and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) strike began and has been ongoing for the last few months. Multiple popular networks such as Netflix, Disney, HBO, Warner Brothers, Discovery, NBC, Nickelodeon, and more have been affected by the strike as the entertainment industry has come to a halt. Along with the 2023 writers’ strike, it is part of a series of broader Hollywood labor fights for better work compensation. The SAG strike began negotiation issues with studios and streamers over problems like lower income issues and the future of artificial intelligence.
The current SAG-AFTRA president, Fran Drescher says that the actor’s strike she is leading is an “inflection point that goes beyond Hollywood.” Drescher is protesting because actors and actresses were being “marginalized, disrespected, and dishonored.” One of the main issues is the amount of episodes ordered for different shows. Television shows used to have multiple seasons with up to 20 or more episodes. Recently, though, shows have maybe one or two seasons with eight to ten episodes each. Because of this, actors were receiving lower income for their work in the entertainment industry.
People also became alarmed over the use of artificial intelligence. Movies and television shows used to use real actors and actresses as extras in films. However, with the advancement of new technology, studios are now using AI to generate faces and put them in films. This means that less people are getting hired and paid to do their jobs. Actors who are new in the industry tend to perform as featured extras in movies, but now that artificial intelligence is taking over, people don’t have that opportunity meaning that future films will completely be AI. “We will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots,” “Breaking Bad” actor Bryan Cranston said in support of the SAG-AFTRA strike. “We will not allow you to take away our dignity.”
To hasten up negotiations with the studios, SAG-AFTRA made a compromise to drop demands for residuals from earlier movies and television shows in exchange for a donation, which would go straight to their pension fund. They also created a formula for payment when their future films get sent to television. Although discussions between the two sides resumed on Oct. 2, the actors’ strike is still moving forward with no end date in sight.
