SAG-AFTRA\u2018s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland was very circumspect today onstage at CES about upcoming contract negotiations with the studios and streamers and who will or should own Warner Bros. Yet, when it came to his labor big stick, the actor\u2019s guild National Executive Director was extremely blunt, sorta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to be crystal clear, we are not going to accept a deal that is not fair to our members,\u201d the union chief said at the Las Vegas confab as painful memories of the 2023 picket lines were in the air. \u201cThere is no reason there should need to be a strike because these companies should come to the table in good faith, as we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then DCI tossed a grenade into the AMPTP mix: \u201cI am certainly not going to rule out a strike. A strike is a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the hurt the long labor action of 2023 brought to all sides of the table in hindsight, the 170,000-strong union NED then took a step back from his own blast: \u201cBut with a start on February 9, with weeks and weeks of time for us to negotiate, there is no reason we shouldn\u2019t be able to reach a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an unusual timeline for Tinseltown talks, SAG-AFTRA is going first in talks with the now Greg Hessinger-led Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for this year\u2019s contracts. Trying not to walk into anything stinky, Crabtree-Ireland sidestepped any real discussion of the expanded contract the AMPTP is seeking and the millions for guild Health plans, which Deadline exclusively reported on last month, they are intending to offer as a trade-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, DCI didn\u2019t deny any of that, but punted he couldn\u2019t \u201crespond to a non-proposal,\u201d insisting bureaucratically SAG-AFTRA hasn\u2019t received any formal pitches from ex-SAG boss and old pal Hessinger yet. Still, with the sides clearly taking a position going into next month\u2019s talk, Crabtree-Ireland was playing to a measured definition of communication and the back and forth of bargaining points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The notion of a five-year contract as opposed to the current format of three-years that the AMPTP are looking for in the name of \u201cstability, as one source said in December, is not going away \u2013 especially with the sweetener of a $110 million infusion into the unstable-to-varying-degrees \u201cCadillac\u201d (as Ken Ziffren put it so poetically) Health plans of each guild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then again, having made AI such a focal point in the long, long days of the summer of strikes three years ago, it was tech, not talk,s that Crabtree-Ireland really wanted to discuss in Sin City, sorta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAG-AFTRA\u2018s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland was very circumspect today onstage at CES about upcoming contract negotiations with the studios and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\n