Inhumans Star Eme Ikwuakor To Vote Against SAG-AFTRA Deal, Here’s Why

The strike by Hollywood actors and writers is heading towards a resolution. Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) have introduced a deal accomplishing big achievements on actors’ compensation and placing restrictions on the industry’s usage of generative AI. But, despite the fact that a new contract has been placed, some members of the guild intend to vote against it. Eme Ikwuakor is among those who plans to vote no on the new pact and shared the reason via social media.

Along with the reasons Eme Ikwuakor expressed, “I, like everyone else, want to return to work and find it distressing that union members and other unions have had to endure financial loss and potential damage to their livelihoods during this process. It should never happen in our industry that we’ve had to sacrifice and fight so hard to protect. My vote against this proposal is a vote of confidence that we can continue the fight, not only for our union but for every union and profession worldwide.”

Addressing the issue of using artificial intelligence, Eme Ikwuakor reasoned that he has issues with the term “Endeavor” used in the contract, which stands for “try hard to achieve something” Eme wrote, “I have concern that studios may exploit this by delaying their compliance. For example, a studio could claim that they tried to comply by a certain date but have multiple AI-related movies already in production. This use of “endeavor” feels like a loophole.”

He further said, “The responsibility of tracking their own AI duplicates and synthetics falls heavily on the actors.” He states that a union cannot monitor every “AI duplicate or synthetic fake” being used without consent, and thus the onus is on the actors to identify, “file a claim, and engage in the process, but only for the ones they discover.” However, Eme refrains from discussing issues related to “AI usage after the actor’s death, payment structure for AI,” as many are already discussing that.

Speaking on the issue of streaming bonus, Eme Ikwuakor mentioned, “too much power has been given to the streamers, they should not be the sole determinants of a show’s success. $40 million(estimate) is nowhere near enough to fix the problem we are witnessing with streaming and residuals.” He further addressed the issue of series regulars and advance payment on residuals and relocation fees. He claims that the deal does not “address the root cause of the issue and only provides a temporary solution in the wrong direction.” Further he states that the contract also falls short of resolving the casting concerns of actors.

In conclusion, Eme Ikwuakor stated that many aspects are not definite and can be changed or refused in practice once the contract is ratified.