Hollywood unions are preparing to negotiate with studios on thorny issues such as artificial intelligence and health insurance, and are setting bargaining dates for the coming months.
SAG-AFTRA told members last month that negotiators would meet with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on February 9. Negotiations are scheduled to continue until March 6th.
The Writers Guild of America is scheduled to begin negotiations in 10 days, on March 16th. The WGA’s contract expires on May 1, and negotiations are typically finalized.
The Directors Guild of America is scheduled to begin negotiations 10 days later, on May 11. DGA and SAG-AFTRA’s contracts each expire on June 30th. If SAG-AFTRA negotiations fail to reach an agreement before the WGA negotiations begin, there is still an opportunity to restart negotiations in June, before the deadline expires.
The negotiations are the first since the 2023 Writers’ and Actors’ Strike, and are likely to revisit the concerns that led to those outages, such as AI and residuals on streaming platforms. Traditionally, the first of three unions to bargain (often the DGA) has set the pattern for the other two unions. But that dynamic was severely disrupted in the last cycle, and it may or may not return.
The industry has struggled over the past three years, especially in Los Angeles. Negotiators are expected to focus on items that will boost jobs in member countries, while being wary of threatening the economic recovery.
In a message to member states last month, SAG-AFTRA leaders said they called for an early negotiating window to allow sufficient time for talks and avoid jeopardizing the “nascent but much-needed revival of domestic manufacturing activity.”
The production slowdown is also straining industry health plans and could force negotiators to consider adjusting benefit structures. AMPTP has begun laying the groundwork on this issue, releasing a five-page report last month showing that guild members receive relatively generous health insurance.
The report showed that compared to other large employer-based plans, DGA, WGA, and SAG-AFTRA members pay lower premiums, lower deductibles, and lower out-of-pocket limits.
AMPTP has also floated the idea of a five-year deal instead of the usual three-year deal, indicating that the studio is willing to pay a premium to buy long-term labor peace.
Unions are also expected to redouble their efforts to protect their members from the threat of AI. In 2023, the writers and actors called for protections for their members’ works from being used to train AI systems. They acquired various other AI guardrails, but training did not secure any. Disney’s recent deal with OpenAI (allowing the use of Disney characters in Sora 2) has heightened concerns about this issue.
The union and AMPTP declined to comment on the negotiation schedule.
