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The SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee is meeting to discuss the studios’ latest offer, with the conversation potentially leading to a final union-side vote on the deal.
Continuing its discussion from Tuesday night over the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ most recent proposal, the negotiating team met on Wednesday starting at around 11 a.m. It was unclear as of press time when a conclusive vote on the deal could take place, but one union-side source said that the group was at that point voting on the shape of the final package that the team will send to AMPTP president Carol Lombardini to see if the management side will sign off. The source added that the union side would have one final adjustment on consent over generative AI to send to the AMPTP, which is not expected to be a deal-breaker.
Some time after the negotiating committee — a group of 17 voting members and 17 alternates that operate on a basis of general consensus — tallies up their final votes on the pact, it will announce whether they support it to members, says a separate union-side source.
Several sources were optimistic that the final vote, and a deal, could take place on Wednesday. According to multiple sources with knowledge of the negotiations, SAG leadership expects the negotiating committee to vote unanimously to support the deal it has reached with the AMPTP.
The negotiating committee spoke for 10 hours on Tuesday about the companies’ latest deal, the group reported to members that night. “We appreciate your patience and support while we finish our work,” they said.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, on an earnings call on Tuesday, called the studio offer “last and final” and said it “met virtually all of the union’s goals.” He added, “We recognize that we need our creative partners to feel valued and rewarded and look forward to both sides getting back to the business of telling great stories.” Meanwhile, in a CNBC interview the same day, Disney CEO Bob Iger said he was “optimistic” that the actors’ deal would be figured out soon. He added of the 2024 movie slate, “Obviously, we’d like to try to preserve a summer of films, the entire industry is focused on that, we don’t have much time to do that.”
But the negotiating committee’s vote is just one step in a larger process. According to the SAG-AFTRA constitution, all national multi-employer collective bargaining agreements — such as the TV/theatrical deal — have to be approved by the union’s national board and then ratified by its membership to take effect.
Kim Masters and Rebecca Keegan contributed reporting.
