SAG-AFTRA Negotiations to Continue Monday

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Negotiations on the next three-year contract for Hollywood’s largest union concluded after a weekend of talks on Sunday with a renewed sense of optimism — although no agreement has yet been reached.

After a weekend of back-and-forth over SAG-AFTRA’s next television/theatrical agreement, the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers do not have a date to return to formal bargaining. However, the talks were said to be productive: several insiders on the studio side described the weekend sessions as a positive step, even if the two sides have not yet finalized all points of the deal, including the union’s attempt to get more compensation from broadcast work and regulations regarding With artificial intelligence.

the shift This comes after the studios made it clear to union leadership last week that if there is no sign of resolution by the first week of November, or even by November 1, their 2024 summer movie slate will almost certainly be blown up. If that happens, talks could stall. Until after the first of the year, a worrying prospect for everyone involved, according to studio insiders.

The union presented its latest responses to the studio on Saturday, while Sunday witnessed some discussions between representatives of the two parties without the direct participation of the studio’s senior executives who participated in previous bargaining sessions the previous week.

There are high industry expectations that this latest series of bargaining dates could lead to a tentative deal. The union and management returned to the negotiating table on Tuesday, October 24, and have since exchanged proposals on items including the union’s attempt to improve compensation flowing to its members and significantly raise the minimum wage to account for recent inflation.

As the final week of negotiations approached, more than several thousand SAG-AFTRA members signed a letter in support of the union’s leadership, urging the union side to persist and not compromise in the name of ending the strike: “It is that we would rather remain on strike than accept a bad deal,” it said. In the letter released Thursday and signed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Cynthia Nixon, Leslie Odom Jr., Demi Moore, Jon Hamm and others.

The statement of support came after a separate group of actors, frustrated with the direction of the negotiations, submitted a different draft of a letter criticizing SAG-AFTRA’s leadership. Ultimately, this group decided not to publish their message once the guild returned to the negotiating table with the studios on October 24.

Kim Masters contributed to this report.