SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator Says Studios Have Stopped Negotiations To Starve Them Out

It’s been many weeks since SAG-AFTRA joined WGA on strike and yet it seems as if they’ve made no headway with the studios.

In fact, AMPTP has refused to negotiate with the union in a move people speculate is meant to force them to back down.

On Labor Day, the National Executive director and Chief Negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, gave updates about the terms of the strike and why there’s been no progress yet.

SAG-AFTRA – Chief Says Union Is Willing To Negotiate A Fair Deal With AMPTP

The AMPTP has effectively closed ranks, obstinately refusing to meet with SAG-AFTRA union leaders for further negotiations.

Writing for Variety, SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, said that they’ve tried several times to open negotiations with AMPTP and their representatives, but all their attempts have been rebuffed.

He said: “When our contract expired July 12, we told representatives for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (which includes the major studios and streamers like Amazon, Apple TV, Disney, Fox, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery and others) that we were willing to continue negotiating.

The response was a hard “no.” The AMPTP went even further and told us it would be “quite some time before they would be ready to talk” with us again.

It has indeed been quite some time. More than 52 days later, we are still ready and willing to negotiate a fair deal, but we have not heard a word from the AMPTP.”

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He touched on the fact that the ongoing strike is costing the economy billions. “The AMPTP’s intransigence and silence is irrational.

The only way a strike is resolved is through the parties talking. Their refusal to even talk with us seems like a deliberate effort to prolong the strike and inflict maximum pain.

Some economists are estimating approximately $5 billion in economic losses as a result. Or, perhaps their endgame is, as one anonymous studio executive told a news outlet, to let the strike “drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.””

This is something Crabtree-Ireland has dismissed as a failed strategy, adding, “Rather than fatigue, they find our members’ innate resilience, unity, and solidarity.”

Crabtree-Ireland also takes solace in knowing that most of America stands with them in their fight for fair compensation