SAG-AFTRA’s membership has authorized its negotiators to call a strike against the video game industry, the union said Wednesday, in hopes that it will jump-start contract talks that have been stalled since June.
At stake is the union’s share of the $20 billion that the video game industry is expected to generate this year. EA Games, Activision, Disney and Warner Bros., along with recording studios such as Blindlight and Formosa are on the other side of the table.
The vote gives union leaders a significant bargaining chip when they return to the table. If future talks fail to produce an agreement, leaders would be able to call a strike without another vote.
“With this result in hand,” the union said, “the Negotiating Committee will seek to return to the bargaining table and continue to press for a fair resolution on behalf of performers working in video games.”
The Interactive Media agreement expired on Dec. 31, and bargaining sessions held in February and June failed to produce an agreement.
“We’ve been through two rounds of negotiations with our employers, and they’ve rejected every proposal we’ve made,” the union said on its website. It says the companies’ proposals “are completely without precedent in the entertainment industry, and we believe they are reckless and ill-advised.”
SAG-AFTRA said the management proposals would allow the companies to hire their own employees to play characters in video games without having to join the union, offer a reduction in fees that would “roll back the gains we’ve made in previous contracts” and issue $2,500 fines against actors who are not “attentive to the services for which they have been engaged.”
SAG Awards 2015: Red Carpet Arrivals (Photos)
Justin Theroux ("The Leftovers") and Jennifer Aniston ("Cake")
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Matthew McConaughey ("True Detective") with wife Camila Alves
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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ("Game of Thrones")
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Lupita Nyong'o ("12 Years a Slave")
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Claire Danes ("Homeland")
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Meryl Streep ("Into the Woods")
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Paula Patton ("About Last Night")
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Julianne Moore ("Still Alice")
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Julia Roberts ("The Normal Heart")
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Emmy Rossum ("Shameless")
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Reese Witherspoon ("Wild)
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Joanne Froggat ("Downton Abbey")
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Steve Carell ("Foxcatcher") with wife Nancy Carell
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Sarah Paulson ("American Horror Story"), Pedro Pascal ("Game of Thrones") and Amanda Peet ("Togetherness")
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Amy Poehler ("Parks and Recreation")
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Viola Davis ("How to Get Away with Murder")
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Natalie Dormer ("Game of Thrones")
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Keira Knightley ("The Imitation Game")
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Gwendoline Christie ("Game of Thrones")
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"Modern Family" stars Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Julie Bowen
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Kit Harrington ("Game of Thrones")
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J.K. Simmons ("Whiplash") and Kevin Costner ("Black or White")
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Edie Falco ("Nurse Jackie")
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Laverne Cox ("Orange Is the New Black")
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Kevin Costner ("Black or White") with wife Christine Baumgartner
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("Veep")
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Uzo Aduba ("Orange Is the New Black")
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Julianna Margulies ("The Good Wife")
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Michael Kenneth Williams ("Boardwalk Empire")
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"Game of Thrones" stars Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner
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Chelsea Peretti ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine") and Jordan Peele ("Key and Peele")
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Sarah Hyland ("Modern Family")
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Gretchen Mol ("Boardwalk Empire")
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Eddie Redmayne ("Theory of Everything")
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Ellar Coltrane ("Boyhood")
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Naomi Watts ("Birdman") and Liev Schreiber ("Ray Donovan")
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Joe Manganiello ("True Blood") and Sophia Vergara ("Modern Family")
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Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher ("Star Wars")
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Rosamund Pike ("Gone Girl")
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Sophia Bush ("Chicago P.D.")
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Joan Collins
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"Boyhood" stars Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater and Ellar Coltrane
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See what this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards guests and nominees are wearing as they arrive at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles
Justin Theroux ("The Leftovers") and Jennifer Aniston ("Cake")