By Carol Badaracco Padgett
Two-hundred-and-sixty-six days is about the amount of time it takes to get a bun out of
the oven.
Ironically, it’s also what it took to get bilateral agreements hammered out during 2023’s
Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of
Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes combined, at 148 days and 118
days, respectively.
Both groups, as the whole world knows, stood up against their
employers in widely publicized strikes that, for a total of 38 weeks, pretty much shut
down production within the film and television industry.
As the days wore on and guild members worked together toward an equitable
resolution, Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Paramount+, Disney+, Apple TV and a host of other streaming outlets pumped out the programming to keep consumers occupied. Some streaming content was new and waiting in the wings, other content and old cult favorites were taken down from the shelf, dusted off and put back into the viewing mix.
Still, consumers wanted more. And most importantly – writers, actors, other entertainers and their families needed more.
Leading into spring 2024, with new contracts born, here’s what “more” looks like on the SAG-AFTRA front, according to several Atlanta-based members, negotiators and a seasoned talent agent.
“If you don’t like it, don’t just complain on social media – get in the trenches and make it better for the next time. Challenge your local board, serve on a committee, be a part of the solution or ‘Shut. Up.’”
- Karen Ceesay
Act 2
For the second-term SAG-AFTRA Atlanta local president, actor Eric Goins (Cobra Kai, Stargirl, The Righteous Gemstones and others), negotiations for a new contract agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) were squarely a success.
“We broke the bargaining pattern and secured 11% increases in the first year on our minimums, which is really meaningful in terms of the minimum compensation our folks get when they go to work each day,” Goins notes. “Through this historic negotiation, we were able to make first-of-its-kind comprehensive improvement in various categories – from principal performers to stunt performers, dancers, background actors and multiple categories of performers, impacting a large segment of our membership.”
Goins adds that important inroads were made in the area of performer compensation through the creation of the new High Budget Subscription Video-on-Demand (HB SVOD) streaming bonus.
“This negotiation did the heavy lifting of introducing and creating this new third rail of compensation, in addition to initial compensation and existing residual payments,” furthered Goins.
Since the streaming bonus is subject to bargaining, Goins believes this new stream of revenue will be a substantial area of growth in future negotiations by securing improved success metrics that increase payments and include more members. For actor, union activist, and negotiator Mike Pniewski (Hightown, Reptile, American Made and others), overall increases in performers’ pay surpassed what he expected was possible.
“I never thought we’d get over a billion dollars in pay increases,” he states.
Increased revenue towards actors’ pension and health care plans was another win in Pniewski’s mind – one that’s incredibly important for working actors.
Although there’s more work to be done, as there is at the close of any business
negotiation that affects a broad swath of people, Pniewski believes, “Part of joining a union is coming together and supporting each other, and making it better for everybody. The contract has been ratified and let’s get back to work and go forward. There will be another negotiation in 2026.”
Actor Karen Ceesay (Suncoast, Stranger Things, The Walking Dead and others),
elected to the Atlanta local SAG-AFTRA board last year during the strike, understands that the contract negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP are always a work in progress.
“This contract is way better than our previous contract,” she states. “You can’t get everything you want every time.”
As an example, she adds that personally she was hoping for more in the realm of residuals from the recent historic negotiations.
And still, for any actor who would show displeasure at any facet of the new contract agreement, Ceesay reminds, “[it] needs to be directed to the people who put us in this position, the AMPTP, not our leaders.”
As for the proper way to address the need for further changes? Ceesay urges, “if you don’t like it, don’t just complain on social media – get in the trenches and make it better for the next time. Challenge your local board, serve on a committee, be a part of the solution or ‘Shut. Up.’”
From the vantage point of talent agent Jason Lockhart, head of TV and film and
president of Atlanta Models and Talent (AMT), he’s pleased with the real-life
reverberation of the new contract agreements on some of his clients.
“One young actress saw her deal [on a series] quadruple – it went up four times what it was before the strike,” Lockhart says. “Imagine your agent calling to say your deal was this, but now it’s four times that amount.”
“The increase,” Lockhart emphasizes, “made the difference between this actress working through a fairly low salary over the course of seven episodes, to now hopefully being able to pay all her bills for the rest of the year, just from this one role.”
“We hope to have many stories like this, especially across the southeast market,” he adds.
The plot thickens, mostly in positive ways
What about the new contract’s developments surrounding the seriously concerning and widely publicized topic of artificial intelligence (AI)?
“We obtained informed consent and control when AI is engaged. But we need
legislators to get involved and put protections in place, not just for actors, but for the general public,” Goins explained.
He adds, “AI is changing rapidly, though, and we’ll be ready to react and get contract protections in place to further protect our members.”
One component of the new contract that gets a unanimous hell yes from all sources is the guidelines put in place around self-taping auditions -- where actors videotape themselves reading from a script and send it to casting agents to be considered for a role. Whereas auditions were once always live, self-taping became especially commonplace during the pandemic, along with auditions conducted through Zoom.
While self-taping had its conveniences for busy actors and casting agents working all over the country and the world, it was a double-edged sword for actors.
“I’ve been working on engaging members, casting directors and talent agents in Atlanta to educate them on the new contract provisions surrounding self-taping,” Goins confirms. “The self-tape provisions are a major achievement in our negotiations, protecting our members from self-tape protocols where a lot of the financial and resource burden was falling on our members.”
How does the new SAG-AFTRA/AMPTP contract shake out in regards to geographic disparities across the country – where actors in Los Angeles and New York might get paid more for roles than actors would in Georgia when productions come down South to Film?
It turns out that the issue wasn’t LA and NY versus Georgia, in particular, but instead it was LA and NYC versus everyplace else.
As Ceesay frames it, “Prior to the strike we felt like we were being taken advantage of and treated with a substantial amount of disrespect in comparison to our fellow members in NY and LA. Now, we realize that we are not alone – so many other smaller markets deal with this same issue and both Fran (Drescher) and Duncan (Crabtree- Ireland) have shown a great deal of support in our cause.”
Even though actors in many markets outside of LA and NY are affected by geographic discrepancies in compensation – and the issue is not yet resolved – the big win for SAG-AFTRA members is that the AMPTP is now publicly aware of the issue.
“We did get agreement to have a meeting with the AMPTP to discuss this issue with casting and to create a way forward,” Pniewski says. “Some of this was due to the vast amount of productions coming to Georgia, and the attempt to hire local actors for less money than an actor flown in from NY or LA.”
He adds, “While we couldn’t contractually mandate a solution [at this stage of the negotiations], we did get them to agree to a meeting. I’ll be part of it when it happens, Eric too, but we don’t know the date yet.”
State and regional issues take their first steps
How does the new SAG-AFTRA/AMPTP contract shake out in regards to geographic disparities across the country – where actors in Los Angeles and New York might get paid more for roles than actors would in Georgia when productions come down South to Film?
It turns out that the issue wasn’t LA and NY versus Georgia, in particular, but instead it was LA and NYC versus everyplace else.
As Ceesay frames it, “Prior to the strike we felt like we were being taken advantage of and treated with a substantial amount of disrespect in comparison to our fellow members in NY and LA. Now, we realize that we are not alone – so many other smaller markets deal with this same issue and both Fran (Drescher) and Duncan (Crabtree- Ireland) have shown a great deal of support in our cause.”
Even though actors in many markets outside of LA and NY are affected by geographic discrepancies in compensation – and the issue is not yet resolved – the big win for SAG-AFTRA members is that the AMPTP is now publicly aware of the issue.
“We did get agreement to have a meeting with the AMPTP to discuss this issue with casting and to create a way forward,” Pniewski says. “Some of this was due to the vast amount of productions coming to Georgia, and the attempt to hire local actors for less money than an actor flown in from NY or LA.”
He adds, “While we couldn’t contractually mandate a solution [at this stage of the negotiations], we did get them to agree to a meeting. I’ll be part of it when it happens, Eric too, but we don’t know the date yet.”
The film industry blooms
Like all things that spring up following a winter of hibernation, the film industry is steadily coming back to life.
“This February (2024) we’ve had our biggest month since November of 2022,” Lockhart says of his team’s work at AMT. “The industry is coming back and I think we’ll continue to see more and more movement over the next 2-3 months.”
For Pniewski, Ceesay, and Goins, springtime is further enlivening the labor movement.
“Over this past year, the unions really helped each other out,” Pniewski says of both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. “This has been a unifying movement for the industry and for labor in general. Corporate profits are so out of hand and the wage gap is so wide – this was a seminal moment for our industry.”
Ceesay adds, “I would challenge people to take part in the fight.”
Goins agrees, remembers history and looks forward. His father, now retired, shared a dream with the second-term Atlanta local SAG-AFTRA president when he was growing up.
“He was a plumber and worked hard to create his own business. And he was incredibly successful as a commercial plumbing contractor,” Goins shares.
“He said, ‘Work hard and you’ll succeed.’ But I started to lose hope in that promise,” the actor and union activist admits. “Last year I started to have hope in that process again, during the labor movement.”
