"We Demand Respect": Actors Join Writers on Strike, Grinding Film & TV Production to a Halt

Television and film actors are going on strike after a breakdown in negotiations between the SAG-AFTRA union and Hollywood studios. More than 160,000 members of the union are taking part in the first major actors’ strike since 1980. This also marks the first time since 1960 that actors and screenwriters have been on strike at the same time, with members of the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines since early May. Both unions say pay has not kept up in the streaming age, with even hit shows and movies no longer a guarantee of stable income. The major studios are also pushing for adoption of artificial intelligence tools that could include scanning the likeness of actors to be reused in perpetuity. “There seems to be a concerted effort by these companies to try to break the entertainment unions,” says Shaan Sharma, a Los Angeles Local board member of SAG-AFTRA and a member of the negotiating committee.