SAG-AFTRA votes to strike after Disney CEO slammed move as ‘disturbing’

Hollywood’s actors union voted Thursday to join the ongoing writers strike.

Union leadership voted for the strike hours after the contract expired and talks involving the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers representing employers including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others broke off.

This marks the first time the actors and writers guilds were picketing at the same time since 1960.

Matt Damon, Jamie Lee Curtis shared support for the strike in the days leading up to the decision.

“I see a strike in my crystal ball. The souls of ghosts of performers long past urging us in this modern moment to fight for our rights to exist as creators,” Curtis wrote on Instagram. “Since we will all stop utilizing social media to promote work that we are on strike for, this is my last offering from the wonderful new Disney movie @hauntedmansion and ironic because in order to put Madame Leota inside her crystal ball and trap her there for hundreds of years, they used a digital technique which was a first for me, acting with my head in a vise, but the results are magnificent.”

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“A great combination of acting AND technology,” she added. “What I will say is that although I AM computer generated, it is FROM my PERFORMANCE, my sense of comedic timing and you CANNOT replicate that with a machine. I stand STRONG with my union.”

Meanwhile, Damon said nobody wants a “work stoppage,” but emphasized that actors need “fair” contracts.

“We got to protect the people are kind of on the margins,” Damon told the Associated Press before the strike was announced. “26,000 bucks a year is what you have to make to get your health insurance, and there are a lot of people whose residual payments are what carry them across that threshold. If those residual payments dry up, so does their healthcare, and that’s absolutely unacceptable.”

“We can’t have that, so we got to figure out something that is fair,” he added. “Anyway, we’ll see where it goes. Nobody wants a work stoppage… It’s painful for every other guild. Really painful for IATSE and all our brothers and sisters there, nobody wants that, but we [have] to work under contracts that are fair.”

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Jeremy Renner also indicated he would join the strike as he shared a photo of “SAG-AFTRA ON STRIKE” picket signs and wrote “A necessary change …”.

However, the CEO of Disney emphasized that an actors strike would be “damaging” in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Bob Iger noted the union’s decision was “very disturbing to [him]. We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from Covid, which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption.”

For the Disney head honcho, the strike is a “shame.”

“It will have a very, very damaging effect on the whole business, and unfortunately, there’s huge collateral damage in the industry to people who are supportive services, and I could go on and on,” Iger insisted. “It will affect the economy of different regions, even, because of the sheer size of the business. It’s a shame, it is really a shame.”

SAG-AFTRA claimed the production companies had “refused” to engage in negotiations with the union ahead of the strike.

“The companies have refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely stonewalled us. Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal,” said Fran Drescher, the star of “The Nanny” who is now the actors guild president.

The group representing the studios, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said it was disappointed by the failure to reach a deal.

“This is the Union’s choice, not ours. In doing so, it has dismissed our offer of historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses, and more,” the AMPTP said in a statement.

The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since early May.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.