HOLLYWOOD ACTORS UNION BOARD APPROVES STRIKE-ENDING DEAL AS LEADERS TOUT MONEY GAINS AND AI RIGHTS

Board members from Hollywood's actors union voted to approve the deal with studios that ended their strike after nearly four months, with the union's leadership touting the gains made in weeks of methodical negotiations.

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Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists' executive director and chief negotiator, announced at an afternoon news conference that the tentative agreement was approved with 86% of the vote.

The three-year contract agreement next goes to a vote from the union's members, who are now learning what they earned through spending the summer and early fall on picket lines instead of film and television sets. That vote begins last week and continues into December.

Crabtree-Ireland said the deal "will keep the motion picture industry sustainable as a profession for working class performers."

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said the studios believed they could outlast actors by waiting more than two months before initiating talks.

"What were they doing? Were they trying to smoke us out?" she said. "Well honey, I quit smoking a long time ago."

Crabtree-Ireland and Drescher would not give specifics on who disapproved of the deal, and why. The board vote was weighted, so it's not immediately clear how many people voted against approval.

Overall, the happy scene at SAG-AFTRA's Los Angeles headquarters was as different as can be from the defiant, angry tone of a news conference in the same room in July, when guild leaders announced that actors would join writers in a historic strike that shook the industry.