After 118 days (almost three months), the SAG-AFTRA strike was eventually called off.
Following a grueling two weeks of negotiations, the actors’ union officially secured a tentative agreement with film and television companies in Hollywood on Wednesday, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
The union’s negotiating committee unanimously endorsed the deal, and so the strike will end on Thursday. The agreement will be presented to the union’s national board for approval on Friday.
The announcement follows the failure of contract discussions for the first time in July. Negotiations resumed last month, but large corporations were unable to agree on the union’s conditions.
Negotiations resumed at the end of October, and a deal was eventually reached.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said on Wednesday that their “tentative agreement represents a new paradigm.”
They noted that this is one of the “biggest contract-on-contract gains” that SAG-AFTRA has seen in its history, which includes “the largest increase in minimum wages in the last forty years; a brand new residual for streaming programs; extensive consent and compensation protections in the use of artificial intelligence; and sizable contract increases on items across the board.”
After the deal was authorized, committee member Kevin E. West stated there were “tears of exhilaration and joy” in the committee chamber.