As the Writer’s Guild of America strike hits the three-month mark, SAG-AFTRA—the actor’s union—is joining the picket lines and gaining massive donations from members.
After three months, Hollywood studios are finally ready to continue contract negotiations with the Writers Guild of America (WGA), as SAG-AFTRA—the largest actor’s union in the world—have decided to pick up their picketing signs and join the front lines to back their script-writing peers. Making some great progress after negotiations and communications came to a halt, yesterday, Carol Lombardini, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), made contact with Ellen Stutzman, the WGA’s chief negotiator, to set a meeting to begin talks once again for later this week.
“The AMPTP, through Carol Lombardini, reached out to the WGA today and requested a meeting this Friday to discuss negotiations,” the union wrote in a message to its members last night. “We’ll be back in communication with you sometime after the meeting with further information. As we’ve said before, be wary of rumors. Whenever there is important news to share, you will hear it directly from us.”
The original talks between the WGA and AMPTP came to an end after an agreement couldn’t be reached on a number of issues, such as viewership-based residuals, minimum staffing levels, and regulation of the use of AI. In July, SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 actors and performers, joined the strike in order to help apply pressure to the Hollywood studios, which has caused the 75th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards to be indefinitely postponed, while several shows have halted entirely.
While even politicians like President Joe Biden discussed the WGA strike, stating he believes the writers should be given “a fair deal that they deserve as soon as possible,” big-name actors have begun to roll donations to SAG-AFTRA to help with the good fight, with some even eclipsing the $1M mark. With names like Jennifer Lopez, Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Oprah Winfrey sending money, it seems it’s all hands on deck for this fight.
