<\/p>\n
The SAG-AFTRA leadership has announced a tentative agreement (TA) with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), presenting it with the now-familiar rhetoric of \u201chistoric gains\u201d and \u201cfoundational improvements.\u201d Members are being urged to ratify the deal quickly, to embrace \u201cstability\u201d and to celebrate the deal as proof that the collective bargaining system works. <\/p>\n
Artists should do none of these things. This agreement must be rejected with the largest \u201cno\u201d vote possible and independent rank-and-file committees must be formed immediately to ensure workers\u2019 control and unity across industries.<\/p>\n
After the 118-day strike of 2023\u2014a strike that demonstrated the extraordinary willingness of performers to sacrifice for their livelihoods and their futures\u2014the union\u2019s\u00a0National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland stated that members wanted \u201ca fundamental change in the way this industry treats them: fairness in compensation for their labor, protection from abusive use of AI technology.\u201d\u00a0He claimed that the \u201cnew contract delivers on these objectives and makes substantial progress in moving the industry in the right direction.\u201d <\/p>\n
It did nothing of the sort. Instead\u00a0the entertainment industry entered the \u201cGreat Hollywood Recession,\u201d which has seen production in Los Angeles and everywhere else implode. Shoot days in Los Angeles fell by 30 to over 50 percent from their five-year averages in virtually every measurable category of production. At the same time, the drive to integrate AI into the production pipeline has grown exponentially.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The financial oligarchy that owns the studios and the streaming conglomerates has never been richer. The same corporate oligarchs who plead poverty at the bargaining table flaunted their grotesque wealth at the 2026 Met Gala<\/a> and similar soir\u00e9es in Hollywood. The collective wealth of the top US billionaires, including Musk, Bezos and Ellison, increased by $698 billion last year. <\/p>\n The ruling class\u2019s contempt for workers, who are struggling with skyrocketing gas and food prices, was summed up by the fascist president in the White House. Asked whether he considered the impact of the US war against Iran on \u201cAmericans\u2019 financial situations,\u201d the gangster-president replied, \u201cNot even a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n In the next few years there will be even greater demands for belt-tightening to fund the administration\u2019s request for $200 billion in supplemental funding for its criminal war against Iran and a $1.5 trillion military budget for next year. <\/p>\n For the studio moguls and tech billionaires, AI is a way to eliminate actors, editors and other workers. In the hands of working people, however, this revolutionary technology could be used to sharply reduce work hours, exponentially increase living standards and encourage an explosion of creativity. A unified fight against mass layoffs and for the collective ownership of these technologies would also demonstrate that the only ones who are inessential to society are the financial parasites who enrich themselves from the collective labor of working people whom they want to throw in the streets. <\/p>\n