“The eyes of the world, and particularly the eyes of labour, are upon us. What happens here is important because what's happening to us is happening across all fields of labour," said SAG-AFTRA’s President Fran Drescher, after contract negotiations between the actors’ union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing the studios, collapsed. 

On 14 July, SAG-AFTRA’s actors and performers started industrial action, joining the screenwriters of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who have been hitting the picket lines since 2 May. The last time that actors and writers walked out simultaneously was in 1960. 

The unions are fighting for better terms with the AMPTP, an entity that represents studios and streamers, such as Amazon, Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros Discovery. Among the workers’ demands, there are increased minimum pay rates, increased streaming residuals (neither of which have kept up with inflation), and improved working conditions. Streaming services and artificial intelligence are at the centre of the talks.

A month ago, the IFJ, together with other global unions, expressed its solidarity with WGA’s brothers and sisters in their fight for fair pay, decent working conditions and the protection of writers’ rights in the digital environment.

"The NewsGuild-CWA stands in solidarity with striking members of SAG-AFTRA who are demanding respect and fair compensation for their labour," said Jon Schleuss, the President of an IFJ affiliate, the NewsGuild-CWA. "We know what it's like to go on strike and North America's media workers and our members will be telling your stories from the picket line," he added.

IFJ Secretary General Anthony Bellanger said: “The IFJ expresses its unwavering support to the members of SAG-AFTRA and their industrial action. A fight that is pivotal for workers across the world”. 

“We, as journalists and media workers, whose work is affected by new technologies and, particularly, generative artificial intelligence (AI), know that it is imperative to initiate a human-centred approach to the use of AI in order to prevent it from being a tool that erodes intellectual property rights and job security. We urge the AMPTP to seriously negotiate SAG-AFTRA, representing over 160,000 members,” he concluded.