The agreement between Hollywood’s actors union and studios, which put an end to their almost four-month strike, was approved by board members.
The agreement between Hollywood’s actors union and studios, which put an end to their nearly four-month strike, was approved by board members on Friday.
At a press conference in the afternoon, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the executive director and main negotiator of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, declared that 86% of the vote had supported it.
The union’s members, who will now get to see what they earned by spending the summer and early fall on picket lines rather than on movie and television sets, will then vote on the three-year contract agreement. Later on Friday, SAG-AFTRA is anticipated to disclose the terms.
The joyful atmosphere inside SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles headquarters was a far cry from the rebellious, indignant tone of a press conference held in the same space in July, during which guild leaders declared that actors would join writers in a historic walkout that rocked the entertainment business.
Actors Billy Porter, Jennifer Beals, Sean Astin, and Sharon Stone are among the board’s members; their approval was fully anticipated, given many of them were involved in the group that negotiated the deal. And rather than waiting for board approval, the union leadership decided to call off the strike as soon as a tentative agreement was struck with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Wednesday, which took some of the drama out of it.
However, it remained a necessary step toward Hollywood’s return to normalcy, if that’s what it is. The final, crucial step will be the member vote. The vote has not yet been given a date.
Actors were generally upbeat about what their leaders had secured for them following the news of a draft agreement, but how they responded to the specifics will be crucial. The 1980 film actors strike ended badly because many members were against the pact. Before anything was finally resolved, there was turmoil for a month.
