The representatives’ strike preparations begin a week before the deadline for the extended talks—the deadline

GT

Exclusive: As talks between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP continue this week, frontrunners are beginning to plan to picket if negotiations end in a deadlock at midnight on July 12 and lead to a double strike along with the writers union.

It comes after SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP agreed on Friday to extend their existing film and television contracts to allow bargaining for a new deal to continue. We hear that there were talks that took place over the weekend as well as on Monday.

It is heard on Deadline that the representatives are working on the picket signs and ordering shirts, compiling a list of captains and coordinators. WGA leaders and coordinators were the logistical backbone of the writers’ strike, now in its 65th day, organizing daily out-of-studio business across Los Angeles and New York City.

Although SAG-AFTRA has not yet formally reached out to the WGA to discuss plans and logistics, Deadline understands that a number of WGA members have individually offered to assist SAG-AFTRA leaders and coordinators should the occasion arise. SAG-AFTRA is expected to join the WGA at studio pickup locations, which would require writers to add one more employee at each location.

If the members of SAG-AFTRA, who voted 98% in favor of authorizing a strike if the leadership fails to reach an acceptable agreement, agree to strike, they are expected to take to the streets on the morning of Thursday 13 July.

We understand that SAG-AFTRA sent its members an email over the long July 4th weekend asking them to join the sit-ins on Wednesdays at CBS Radford, which, we’ve heard, resulted in a huge turnout. We’ve heard that union staff have come and set up their own table apart from the WGA without giving writers a heads up on their plans, though they’re welcomed with open arms.

A strike involving the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild (with the exception of AFTRA, which merged with SAG in 2012) isn’t unprecedented but it’s still pretty rare. In 1960, the WGA was in the middle of a five-month strike when SAG president Ronald Reagan called a strike by the actors’ union.

A WGA member’s source told Deadline, “The Writers have gone on their own 7 out of 8 strikes and won all of them. We’ll get the deal we need this time too, but we welcome them on the line. It will be as historic for the cast to join us as it was in 1960, when Simultaneous strikes provided us with health care and our pension. The WGA has always known the studios don’t give up on anything without a fight, which means walking, and it looks like SAG-AFTRA membership now does, too. Membership seems ready to walk the line.”

There is concern in some quarters of the actors union that leadership will strike a “don’t get there” deal, as evidenced by a letter signed by a group of A-listers including Meryl Streep, Amy Schumer and Charlize Theron.

Hopefully – for the sake of their membership – this time their leadership will be aware of the present moment. The WGA member added, “The last thing any federation in the country wants right now is the DGA.

Deadline has reached SAG-AFTRA for official comment.