U.S. actors union agrees to mediation with studios, but keep strike deadline – National | 24CA News
Negotiators for the SAG-AFTRA actors union agreed late Tuesday to name in a federal mediator to attempt to forge a last-minute settlement with Hollywood studios and keep away from a second simultaneous strike within the leisure business.
The 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA, Hollywood’s largest union, have approved a strike if a brand new labor deal can’t be reached earlier than midnight on Wednesday. The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since early May.
In an announcement late on Tuesday, SAG-AFTRA stated it was sticking with the Wednesday deadline and would “exhaust every possible opportunity to make a deal.”
“However we are not confident that the employers have any intention of bargaining toward an agreement,” the assertion stated.
SAG-AFTRA is demanding increased compensation within the streaming TV period plus safeguards round using synthetic intelligence (AI). A-list stars together with Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep have stated they’re able to stroll off the job if union leaders can’t attain a “transformative deal.”
On Tuesday, SAG-AFTRA stated the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the group that negotiates on behalf of studios, “has abused our trust and damaged the respect we have for them in this process.”
The union stated studio sources had leaked the request for a mediator to the press earlier than SAG-AFTRA negotiators have been knowledgeable.
“We will not be manipulated by this cynical ploy to engineer an extension when the companies have had more than enough time to make a fair deal,” the union stated.
A spokesman for the AMPTP, which represents Walt Disney Co , Netflix Inc and different main studios, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Negotiations have been going down at a troublesome time for media firms which might be below strain from Wall Street to make their streaming companies worthwhile.
Disney, Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal and Paramount Global every misplaced tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} from streaming in the latest quarter. The rise of streaming has additionally eroded tv advert income as conventional TV audiences shrink.
