It didn’t take long after the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced that it reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for signs to emerge that members would need to read the fine print. While the union’s negotiating committee unanimously voted to approve the deal on November 8 following a 118-day strike, it next went to the national board, where the vote was 86 percent in favor, rather than unanimous.

Such dissension, particularly after a lengthy strike, suggested that the three-year agreement’s ratification process wouldn’t go as smoothly as that of the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA), which formalized its tentative agreement (TA) on October 9, with 99 percent of votes favoring ratification.

The initial message sent to the membership following the November 8 vote touted the TV/Theatricals TA’s $1 billion in new wages and benefit plan funding, as well as the “unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI [artificial intellegence],” a first-ever “streaming participation bonus,” and substantial raises in the union’s pension and health caps. The next day, the union called the agreement “revolutionary.”