Members of the Hollywood actors union SAG-AFTRA voted 98.3% in favor of a strike if negotiations with video game companies, which begin this Tuesday, fail.
“It’s time for video game companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on this contract,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement released Monday.
Negotiations between the union and video game companies are expected to begin this Tuesday and continue through Thursday.
The decision comes almost a year after the collective bargaining agreement was expanded to allow for new discussions.
SAG-AFTRA said it will fight for “acceptable conditions” for its members on issues such as wages in line with inflation, protection against artificial intelligence, as well as “basic safety precautions.”
Among the companies that would be affected by a strike are Epic Games, creator of the game Fortnite, Disney Character Voices Inc., Blindlight, responsible for the game Halo, and WB Games Inc, creator of the game Mortal Kombat 11.
SAG-AFTRA explained in a statement that 34,687 union members participated in the vote, 27.47% of eligible actors.
SAG-AFTRA has been on strike for more than two months against AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers), a group that represents Hollywood studios and platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony.
On Sunday, the WGA (Writers Guild of America) and the AMPTP announced an agreement in principle to end a historic strike, which has lasted almost five months.
The agreement, which will be valid for three years, was reached after five marathon days of negotiations and must be approved by WGA management and 11,500 members before the strike officially ends.
The commitment accepted by the studios with the scriptwriters includes an increase in the minimum wage, additional bonuses for those who write the best-viewed series and ways to ensure that artificial intelligence is used without affecting their remuneration.
Once the strike ends, productions such as talk shows can return.
However, the Hollywood film and television industry will remain far from normal, as the actors’ strike will continue and negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the studios have not resumed.
The demands of SAG-AFTRA go beyond those raised by the WGA, including the attribution of a real percentage of profits to actors, regardless of the content, anticipating arduous negotiations.
Actors want to receive residual payments in the streaming model through platforms like Netflix.
Previously, these payments were granted to artists from the income of series or films licensed for international markets or broadcast on television.
The strike of Hollywood writers and actors has already cost California about five billion dollars (4.7 billion euros), according to the Milken Institute.
Source: TSF
