SAG-AFTRA and Studios Reach Tentative Deal, Ending 118-Day Strike
SAG-AFTRA won wage hikes, a new streaming residual and AI consent rules after a 118-day strike, but members still had to ratify the deal.
SAG-AFTRA ended its 118-day strike after reaching a tentative agreement with the studios that put wage gains, streaming pay and AI protections at the center of a new labor bargain for Hollywood. The work stoppage, which shut down television production and delayed film releases across the industry, officially ended at 12:01 a.m. on November 9, 2023.
The deal came after final negotiations resumed on October 2 and continued into early November, following months of tension that began when SAG-AFTRA opened bargaining on February 9 seeking higher compensation and protections against generative AI. The union’s TV/Theatrical Committee approved the agreement unanimously, and the National Board later backed it by 86 percent before members moved to ratification voting.
The contract was a three-year agreement that later ran through June 30, 2026, and the studios said it delivered the biggest contract-on-contract gains in SAG-AFTRA history. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said the package represented a “new paradigm,” with the “largest increase in minimum wages in the last forty years,” a new residual for streaming programs, and consent and compensation protections for artificial intelligence.
Those terms mattered because SAG-AFTRA represents about 160,000 actors and media professionals, many of whom have struggled to keep pace with streaming-era economics. Later reporting on the summary said the deal included a 7 percent minimum pay increase, higher wages for background actors, intimacy-coordinator requirements and self-tape audition protections. It also said the new streaming bonus fund was worth about $120 million, part of an agreement expected to generate more than $1 billion in new compensation and benefit-plan funding.
The settlement followed the Writers Guild of America’s tentative deal with studios about a month earlier, clearing the last major unresolved guild contract in a strike season that had paralyzed much of Los Angeles and beyond. Fran Drescher called the outcome a “paradigm shift,” while the real test now lies in how those AI rules and streaming payments are enforced in a business that has already been rewritten by both.
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