I am thinking the same thing, even with the Director’s Guild of America having reached a three-year tentative deal last Saturday night with AMPTP, who represents studios and streamers.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new contract has provisions for higher pay, safety, residuals, and perhaps the biggest sticking point – the use of artificial intelligence, or AI. It is a major thorn in the side of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA opposition.
Jon Avnet, chariman of the DGA's negotiations committe said in a statement: “We have concluded a truly historic deal. It provides significant improvements for every director, assistant director, unit production manager, associate director and stage manager in our guild. In these negotiations we made advances on wages, streaming residuals, safety, creative rights and diversity, as well as securing essential protections for our members on new key issues like artificial intelligence — ensuring DGA members will not be replaced by technological advances. This deal would not have been possible without the unity of the DGA membership, and we are grateful for the strong support of union members across the industry.”
The agreement headed to the DGA’s national board, but there is no set timetable on when that contract would be ratified. This deal however, is not expected to have an impact on either the WGA or SAG-AFTRA as their issues are slightly different from those of the WGA.
The Writer’s Guild has had no conversations with AMPTP since the strike began and SAG-AFTRA is expected to have their members vote “yes” on their strike authorization cards when the results were due late on Tuesday.
Bottom line--if no deal is reached by June 30, SAG-AFTRA will likely join the writer’s on the picket line. It would mark the first strike hitting Hollywood involving the Screen Actors Guild since 1980.
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