Equity, UK’s performing arts and entertainment trade union, has warned a strike in the UK with PACT (Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television) “may well happen within the 12 months” if ongoing negotiations around pay, the use of Artificial Intelligence and other similar issues to the ones over which US actors are striking are not successful.
Speaking on a webinar organized by the UK crew union Bectu on Monday, Equity’s General Secretary, Paul Fleming, commented that the disruption to film and TV production in the UK is “necessary” to help with UK unions’ own negotiations with studios and producers. Moreover, he highlighted Equity’s concerns over many of the same issues that have led to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA’s current action against the AMPTP in the United States.
“What we are seeing is that the longer the dispute goes on, the deeper it will go, the more intractable it will go, and the more the UK industry will go cold. That is necessary in order to ensure that we are in the strongest possible position to win, as big as SAG-AFTRA is going to win, with our own negotiations through the coming months,” Fleming said.
“What we need to see is that any deal that SAG-AFTRA gets is reflected into the quality of our terms or conditions; that is pressure on us. Our position and our own bargaining, which will start towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year, is essentially hardened because of the position of global producers and our desire and our need to win is higher because of it,” Fleming added.