Ted Sarandos is all “spin,” other CEOs are “irresponsible” for abandoning talks to end strike, says SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland

EXCLUSIVE: Ted Sarandos may have insisted today that he and other studio executives want to end the more than three-month actors’ strike and “get everybody back to work,” but for SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, the Netflix boss, nothing other than warm air. .

“It’s just nonsense to talk about getting people back to work when they refuse to negotiate,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland bluntly told Deadline tonight in response to Sarandos’ comments during the streamer’s third-party quarterly earnings call on Wednesday .

A week after AMPTP and CEO Gang of Four abruptly suspended deliberations over the guild’s revenue-sharing proposal, Sarandos said today, after an upbeat “start of discussions,” that a subscriber charge that has nothing to do with ratings or success had to do, would not come from SAG. -AFTRA was suggested “really broke our momentum.” Led by Sarandos, David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Donna Langley of Discovery, NBCUniversal and Bob Iger of Disney walked out of the AMPTP talks on the afternoon of October 11 and later called Crabtree-Ireland and union president Fran Drescher to say that was not the case. back after just nine days of meetings.

The studios and streamers claimed the guild’s estimated $800 million-a-year plan was an “unsustainable economic burden” that could destroy them. The guild accused the studios and streamers of massively raising the price of the proposal. SAG-AFTRA accused the executive, Gang of Four, and the AMPTP led by Carol Lombardini of “bullying tactics” and using “the same failed strategy they tried to impose on the WGA” in kneecap talks.

As he has done repeatedly and publicly since negotiations concluded, Crabtree-Ireland today pushed back against the factual claims of Gang of Four leader Sarandos, perhaps more forcefully than ever before. The union leader said that if CEOs are truly “incredibly and fully committed to ending this strike,” as Netflix’s co-CEO said Wednesday, they need to match their words and motivations with action.

“The best way to reach an agreement and end this strike is for him and the other chief executives to end their strike from the bargaining table and resume negotiations,” Crabtree-Ireland said tonight. “We were and are ready to continue the discussions – every day.”

“It is irresponsible that companies continue to refuse to negotiate. This harms their employees, the industry and their shareholders.”

Tomorrow it will be 98^e Day SAG-AFTRA has joined the picket line so far. Despite Netflix’s strange announcement that talks were underway on Wednesday, no talks are actually planned between SAG-AFTRA and the CEOs of AMPTP plus studios.