{"id":445845,"date":"2026-05-13T00:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/445845\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T00:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:33:11","slug":"sag-negotiators-talk-ai-pension-plan-changes-in-2026-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/445845\/","title":{"rendered":"SAG Negotiators Talk AI, Pension Plan Changes in 2026 Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTalking to SAG-AFTRA<\/a> chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland<\/a> and president Sean Astin<\/a> in 2026, it\u2019s easy to forget that their union waged a painful, prolonged strike just three years earlier.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter emerging from a months-long negotiation with studios and streamers, the pair are complimentary of the studios\u2019 approach under new president Greg Hessinger. Astin asserts that negotiations don\u2019t always have to include brinksmanship. They describe how they leveraged the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers\u2019 desire for a longer deal term to get AI protections for members and a long-awaited merger for separate pension plans. No taunts aimed at company CEOs or themed picket lines necessary, like during their 2023 strike.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cObviously the companies really wanted a longer term,\u201d says Crabtree-Ireland, who is also the union\u2019s national executive director. \u201cWhat can we maybe achieve that we wouldn\u2019t have otherwise been able to if we entertain that idea? And that\u2019s how we ultimately ended up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a change in tone this year, for sure, but the parties weren\u2019t exactly holding hands and singing kumbaya for three months while they bargained. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Crabtree-Ireland and Astin describe the achievements and disappointments of their latest negotiation. As Astin put it, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be doing my job as president of the union if I couldn\u2019t give you a laundry list of a thousand things I thought we should be getting next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat are the most important, headline gains in this deal in your view?<\/p>\n

\n\tDuncan Crabtree-Ireland: This deal that has a lot of important stuff in it. If I were selecting a few things to highlight, I would say one certainly would be the agreement to merge our pension and retirement plans and the specific process for making that happen. That\u2019s obviously something we\u2019ve been looking to accomplish since merger, since 2012. And so to finally have that pathway laid out and to have an effective date and details, including additional contributions to make it possible, is very gratifying. Another I would say is the artificial intelligence protections. Obviously it\u2019s a topic that\u2019s been constantly under discussion since 2022 and for good reason. There are really meaningful improvements in the digital replication part of the contract, but even more so we have, from my perspective, really significant advances in dealing with synthetics going from our existing contract language \u2026 to now [a] specific statement of principles embodying and embracing human performance and an agreement to limit any use of synthetics only to cases where there\u2019s a \u201csignificant additional value\u201d provided to a production. And that has to be a \u201csignificant additional value\u201d not only over a person, but also over a digital replica of a person. And so that is a meaningful limitation on the use of synthetic technology in the industry and by these major companies that no one\u2019s ever seen before. So I think that\u2019s really a crucial advance.<\/p>\n

\n\tObviously the WGA agreed to a four-year deal before you did, which set a precedent, but why did you feel that a four-year deal was worth your while, especially given the pace at which AI is evolving?<\/p>\n

\n\tCrabtree-Ireland: Really for us it required the right agreement. It required the right elements of the agreement and that included making sure that the AI provisions gave the kind of protection that left us confident our members would be well cared for during a four-year term, but also other provisions that were really important to us, whether that\u2019s residuals, whether that\u2019s obviously the merger of our pension and retirement plans, the companies are putting significant money into both of those areas as well as a whole host of other things in the contract. If you\u2019ve seen the summary, you know that there\u2019s like 56 different major areas that are covered in this contract, that\u2019s quite a lot. And I guess I just want to say for me, and I believe Sean will agree with this and I think our committee, we didn\u2019t come at this as \u2018the Writers Guild agreed to four years, so we\u2019re going to agree to four years.\u2019 We came at this from the perspective of \u2018What is it that we really want to achieve in this negotiation\u2019? And obviously the companies really wanted a longer term. What can we maybe achieve that we wouldn\u2019t have otherwise been able to if we entertain that idea? And that\u2019s how we ultimately ended up there.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you envision the four-year deal as a one-time thing or potentially something you may continue to agree to in subsequent negotiating cycles?<\/p>\n

\n\tAstin: Let me say it like this. There is no pattern, period. Our contract is so wildly different from the other unions, [a] contract that we\u2019re negotiating from our position of strength and our position of need to satisfy the circumstance of our members. We went first this time because we assessed that it was in the interests of the industry to have stability. We have a long list of constituents and a proposal packet that\u2019s very, very, very large and we wanted them to have plenty of time to go through it. And so we never felt stressed or pressured. Will we do that again next time? We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think there is a grown up way of looking at bargaining. Bargaining shouldn\u2019t always be about brinksmanship. It should be the normal course of doing business. It shouldn\u2019t have such upset associated with it. That said, being reasonable, being thoughtful does not mean being weak. And I feel pretty confident they understood that our members reserve the right to take whatever actions necessary to achieve our goals. So I\u2019m proud of the way we approached it and what we accomplished.<\/p>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s talk a little bit about the merger of the SAG and AFTRA pension plans. This brings up some very old history for SAG-AFTRA and not everyone is happy about it. What is your argument for why a merged pension plan will benefit union members?<\/p>\n

\n\tCrabtree-Ireland: The number one argument is that there are almost a thousand members just in the last year who could have qualified for a pension credit if we had had a merged plan and they didn\u2019t. This is actual people who didn\u2019t because their earnings were split between the SAG Pension Plan and the AFTRA Retirement Fund. As a union, it\u2019s our job to help make sure benefits are available to the greatest portion of our members that we can. So the idea [was] having the opportunity to bring these plans together and solve that problem once and for all. This is really important for a large swath of members who\u2019ve been affected by that in the past and the present.<\/p>\n

\n\tAstin: I would say that this is the fulfillment of a long-term promise and what\u2019s complicated is how people who have been aware of the dynamics over the last 13 years are able to make peace with what they\u2019ve been upset about. But once they look at the details of this process as it\u2019s been laid out and the protections that are in place legally, contractually, financially, and in every other way to make sure that participants are safe, they\u2019re protected and that going forward we will be operating efficiently when you\u2019re only administering one retirement program as opposed to two. And in terms of the fundamental premise of how it works, the companies wanted this. It\u2019s a big piece of money for them to put on the table to accomplish this right now. So this is another one of the many things that you could connect to the producers\u2019 desire [for] a longer term and the stability that they were pursuing to achieve this heightened level of efficiency and security for the plans.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn which issues did you not make as much progress as you wanted to in this round of talks?<\/p>\n

\n\tAstin: The joking answer would be all of them, you always want more, but I understand the spirit of your question. I think residuals are something that we made a really important leap forward on this time, but having our members continue to share in the financial life of the work that they invest their time, energy and talent in [is] something we have not fully achieved yet. So I look forward to working on that. [But] I wouldn\u2019t be doing my job as president of the union if I couldn\u2019t give you a laundry list of a thousand things I thought we should be getting next time.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrabtree-Ireland: I\u2019m always reluctant to prejudge what our W&W process and our negotiating committee will decide [are] our priorities. And so even as recently as last year, when I\u2019m talking about AI, I\u2019m always very careful to say that those priorities are determined at the time and we\u2019re going to want to see what our experience is under this contract before we decide what we\u2019re going to push for in our next round of bargaining. Having said that, I agree with what Sean said. I think AI will continue to evolve and there will need to be continued evolution of AI terms and provisions, although I feel very confident that these provisions will be more than sufficient to get our members through the term of this contract and in fact build a structure for the future.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was it like negotiating with a former SAG leader \u2014 and former AFTRA leader \u2014 in Greg Hessinger?<\/p>\n

\n\tCrabtree-Ireland: I worked with Greg in both of those capacities and since, when he\u2019s been on the opposite side of the table from us. I think that Greg showed a great deal of sensitivity to the concerns that our members raised and he\u2019s certainly no pushover. He\u2019s a very tough negotiator and very skilled at what he does. But I think he also brought a new vibe to the bargaining table that has actually served the AMPTP very well if you see the kinds of results in the Writers Guild negotiations and in our negotiation\u2014not served them well in the sense of they got away with anything, but served them well in the sense of building the kind of relationship like Sean described where bargaining doesn\u2019t have to be a crisis every time. That bargaining can be about building a long-term relationship and finding ways to meet each other\u2019s needs without harming our own constituencies. I think there\u2019s reason to be optimistic about that.<\/p>\n

\n\tAstin: Here\u2019s a quote-length response: He helped reset the relationship between our organizations.<\/p>\n

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