Hollywood’s actors are back to work—here’s what they actually got in SAG-AFTRA’s new contract

by Gili Malinsky, CNBC, Published Fri, Nov 17 2023 4:53 PM EST

On Nov. 8, after 118 days of striking, Hollywood actors reached a tentative agreement with studios and streamers regarding the working conditions of their industry. The news comes more than a month after entertainment writers reached a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers themselves.

Every three years, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists renegotiates actors’ contracts — including factors like wage minimums and safety on set — opposite the AMPTP, which represents studios like Sony and streamers like Amazon.

The two entered negotiations on June 7 but failed to reach an agreement by the parties’ extended July 12 deadline. SAG-AFTRA then called the strike to begin on July 14, officially ending it on Nov. 9.

“I feel pretty confident in saying this is a paradigm shift of seismic proportions!” said SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher on the Union’s website about the new deal. In a statement to CNBC Make It, the AMPTP agreed, saying the deal “gives SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.”

Here’s what’s in it.

Wage increases, new streaming bonuses and limits on self-tapes

SAG’s new contract covers numerous aspects of actors’ jobs.

Actors will get a hike in basic wage minimums for a variety of projects across both film and television. For anyone with a speaking role, minimums will increase by 7% effective Nov. 9, another 4% effective July 2024 and another 3.5% effective July 2025. Background actors will get an increase of 11% on Nov. 9 and the same increases as others going forward. Actors will also get better streaming residuals and bonuses for hit shows and movies, defined as those seen by 20% or more of a streaming service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release or the first 90 days of any year following that first year of release.

Bonuses will equal 100% of an actor’s residual, but only 75% will go to the actor directly. The other 25% will go to a joint fund managed by reps from both the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA, who will distribute it to actors in other streaming shows. The idea is to “spread the wealth,” says entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel.

SAG-AFTRA also got improvements in their pensions and new limits around virtual auditions, which can get costly and take up more time than auditions have in the past. Performers are to be sent audition material at least 48 hours in advance, have new guidelines around memorizing text and may not be asked to use a delivery site that isn’t free, among other parameters.

“I was really glad to see the limitations on self-tapes,” says actor Tallie Medel, who’s appeared in films like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and who goes by they/them pronouns. In the past, they’ve used a paid Vimeo account to submit tapes for auditions. Today those can cost up to $108 per month.

AI protections are ‘quite an accomplishment’

One major sticking point in negotiations has been the proliferation of tech like AI. The new contract creates protections around various scenarios in which tech would come into play.

This includes consent and compensation around digital replicas created while an actor’s working on a given project; consent and compensation around digital replicas created outside the scope of a project; and digital alterations to an actor’s performance.

From a labor perspective, the scope of these guardrails is “quite an accomplishment,” says Handel, though some actors think they haven’t gone far enough.

‘I’m bitter that it was assumed that the unions would fold’

Many artists are still combing through the details of their new deal, but even as excitement for what they’ve been able to get mounts, the tension of the last three months persists.

“I’m bitter that it was assumed that the unions would fold as though we’re not used to having to hustle every day,” says Medel, referring to reports of studios hoping to drag out the strikes until artists ran out of money for basic needs. For them, that speaks to a much larger problem of worker treatment throughout the U.S.

“It’s the larger greed that has been heartbreaking,” they say.

Disclosure: AMPTP member NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC and CNBC.