Actors Begin Strike Preparations A Week Ahead Of Extended Talks Deadline

Jul
6,
2023

As talks between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP continue this week, on an extended deadline from the original June 30th expiration, members across the country are gearing up for a strike.

Actors are getting a head start on picket planning should negotiations end in a stalemate at midnight on July 12 and lead to a double strike alongside the Writers Guild. In order to prepare, actors are working on picket signs and ordering T-shirts, and putting together a list of lot captains and coordinators. The WGA captains and coordinators have been the logistical backbone of the writers strike, now on its 65th day, organizing each day’s actions outside studios across Los Angeles and New York City. Although SAG-AFTRA has yet to officially reach out to the WGA to discuss plans and logistics, a number of WGA members have individually offered to help SAG-AFTRA captains and coordinators should the occasion arise.

It is expected that SAG-AFTRA will join the WGA at the currently established studio picket sites, which would require the writers to also add one more staffer at each location. If SAGAFTRA leadership fails to reach an acceptable deal, due to a 98% agreement to strike from the pre-authorization, are expected to hit the streets on the morning of Thursday, July 13. SAG-AFTRA sent its members an email over the long July 4th weekend asking them to join the pickets Wednesday at CBS Radford, which resulted in a large turnout. Guild staff showed up and set up its own table apart from the WGA without giving the writers a heads up of their plans, the WGA embraced SAGAFTRA with open arms.

A strike involving the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild (minus AFTRA, which merged with SAG in 2012) is not unprecedented but still quite rare. In 1960, the WGA was in the middle of a five-month strike when SAG president Ronald Regan called for the actors guild’s own strike. The actors joining the WGA on the pickett lines would be as historic as in 1960, when concurrent strikes gave the unions health care and pension. 

There is concern from some areas of the actors guild membership that leadership will strike a deal that “doesn’t get all the way there,” as evidenced by a letter signed by a slew of A-listers including Meryl Streep, Amy Schumer and Charlize Theron.