Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep among hundreds of SAG members willing to strike during negotiations

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Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Brendan Fraser are among hundreds of Screen Actors Guild members who say they are willing to strike as contract negotiations fail.

The Oscar winners were among a coalition of more than 300 actors who signed the addressee to SAG-AFTRA Leadership and Negotiating Committee before the June 30 deadline for a contract with Hollywood studios, Rolling stone reported.

The letter came in response to a clip released to members by SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, in which he said negotiations had been “extremely productive” and leaders were “laser-focused on all the critical issues you said they are most important to you’. reported the point of sale.

Drescher added, “We’re standing strong and we’re going to make a groundbreaking deal.”

The alliance of actors said in the reply letter that “SAG-AFTRA members may be willing to make sacrifices that leadership is not” in the midst of “an unprecedented turning point in our industry.”

The latest: Jennifer Lawrence, 32, and Meryl Streep, 74, are among hundreds of Screen Actors Guild members who say they are willing to strike during contract negotiations in a letter to SAG-AFTRA leaders published by Rolling Stone

The actor said that “what might be considered a good deal in other years just isn’t enough” amid what they say is a long-running downward trend on the business side for talent.

“We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom and the strength of our union have all been undermined in the past decade. We need to reverse those trajectories.”

Actors who signed the letter, in alphabetical order, include Fred Armisen, Kevin Bacon, J. Smith Cameron, Neve Campbell, Glenn Close, Ariana DeBose, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Duchovny, Beanie Feldstein, Chelsea Handler, Neil Patrick Harris, Riley Keough, John Leguizamo, Dan Levy, Ron Livingston, Eva Longoria, Natasha Lyonne, Rami Malek,

Others who signed the letter include Debra Messing, Liam Neeson, Bob Odenkirk, Rosie O’Donnell, Patton Oswalt, Elliot Page, Keke Palmer, Busy Phillips, Amy Poehler, Zachary Quinto, Michael Rapaport, Emmy Rossum, Mark Ruffalo, Amy Schumer , Chloe Sevigny, Fisher Stevens, Ben Stiller, Amber Tamblyn, Marissa Tomei, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Constance Wu.

The actors who signed the letter said that while they were “willing to strike if push came to shove,” they didn’t want to, because it’s “incredible hardship for so many, and no one wants it.”

The issues the coalition lists in the letter include minimum wage thresholds, health care, pensions, streaming-aligned residual flows, and regulations for self-tape casting agents.

On the subject of artificial intelligence, the group said, “We don’t believe SAG-AFTRA members can afford to make a profit halfway expecting more to come three years from now.”

They added: “We think it is absolutely essential that these negotiations not only protect our likenesses, but ensure that we are properly compensated when our work is used to train AI.”

The Whale star Brendan Fraser, pictured at the SAG Awards in LA in February, is one of the stars signing the letter

The group said it would “rather strike than compromise on these fundamental points” and that settling for less in negotiations with studios would undermine them and translate into “drastically diminished leverage” in future employment contracts.

The potential labor dispute comes just under two months after the Writers Guild of America went on strike on May 1 after failing to strike a deal on a new contract. Artificial intelligence and its written implementation were a topic of attention during the strike.

The troupe of actors referred to the strike in their letter saying, “If you can’t get all the way there, we ask that you use the power given to you by us, the membership, and join the WGA on the picket lines .

“For our union and its future, this is our moment. We hope that you will seize that moment on our behalf and not miss it.’