The Network Television Code, otherwise known as the “Netcode” or simply “the Code,” expired as of June 30, 2024. One month after it had effectively expired, SAG-AFTRA announced on July 31, 2024, that it had agreed to a one-year extension of this major collective bargaining agreement (CBA) covering a lot of TV shows, like variety shows, game shows, talk shows, awards shows, promos, and soap operas.

What the 2024 Netcode Extension Is All About

Specifically, SAG-AFTRA wrote this about the 2024 extension of the Netcode:

SAG-AFTRA and the four major television broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) and other producers have agreed to a one-year extension to the National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting Agreement (also known as the Network Television Code) effective July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. The agreement was scheduled to expire on June 30, 2024.

As you can tell from the announcement, this extension is retroactive in its application, meaning it is effective back to July 1, 2024, rather than effective on July 31 or some other date.

This extension goes until June 30, 2025.  However, keep in mind that SAG-AFTRA and the Networks can let it expire again in 2025 so the expiration date isn’t really very forceful — especially considering the last Netcode was repeatedly extended for almost a year after its effective expiry before a temporary agreement was in place.

With that said, apparently as part of the new agreement, the parties agreed that:

The parties commit to beginning negotiations for a full three-year successor agreement to the Network Television Code no later than June 2, 2025.

But again, that date and the parties’ apparent “commit[ment] to begin negotiations” is still something that does not appear to be really very forceful.

For example, there does not appear to be any punishment in the event one of the parties fails to begin negotiations for a successor agreement by June 2, 2025.

Furthermore, this language does not guarantee the parties actually achieve a successor agreement covering 2025-2028 by June 30, 2025, the date this extended Netcode expires.

The Provisions of the 2024 Netcode Extension Agreement

With this 2024 Netcode extension came a limited number of provisions, which SAG-AFTRA didn’t care to be very specific about in its announcement.

Stand-In Pay Raises

With respect to stand-ins specifically, SAG-AFTRA disclosed:

Minimum rates for background actors and stand-ins shall be increased by 11% (including program fees, extra rehearsal rates, excess work day rates and overtime rates).

In terms of stand-ins’ minimum compensation when working under the Netcode, this means:

  • stand-ins who receive a daily rate should see it go up from $216 for 8 hours to about $240 for 8 hours
  • stand-ins who receive an hourly rate should see it go up from $31/hour to about $34/hour

However, it does not appear that the minimum hours for hourly stand-ins have increased. This means that some stand-ins can show up to work and be paid as little as a four-hour minimum (about $136 gross under this extension) for professional, unionized work that day.

If you worked as a stand-in between July 1 and July 31 at the prior rates, you should expect to receive a retroactive payment to cover the change in your rate because of this retroactive extension. However, if you do not receive it, you should call your local SAG-AFTRA office and/or file a claim inquiry seeking the payment. It is unclear the timeline for receiving such payments, but it may take a number of weeks based on past experiences around retroactive payments.

Based on the language of SAG-AFTRA’s post, it doesn’t appear  that bumps and adjustments are increased. For example, the $14 a stand-in gets when working in smoke appears not to be subject to this 11% increase.

Artificial Intelligence

As far as protections around artificial intelligence (AI), SAG-AFTRA disclosed:

Substantial protections in artificial intelligence, similar to what was achieved in TV/Theatrical and Television Animation negotiations.

What SAG-AFTRA doesn’t say here is more concerning than what it does say.

It has been an open secret that unit employees under the Netcode have had no AI protections, even during the Union’s campaign last year to seek those protections under its other CBAs (the Theatrical Agreement and the Television Agreement).

It was to be seen what SAG-AFTRA would get for its Netcode unit, if anything, because those employees were just as vulnerable as those in the Theatrical and Television units.

Although you might expect Netcode performers to have been vocally upset about their lack of AI protections and for the Union to fight as vigorously for those protections for its Netcode unit as it did last year for other SAG-AFTRA unit members, there was not the kind of outrage from SAG-AFTRA members and their lack of AI protections under the Netcode.

This is likely because the Union did not stoke their outrage on the topic, but also many SAG-AFTRA members probably still don’t know about or work under the Netcode. In fact, SAG-AFTRA even kept quiet until July 31st about the expired Netcode. Stand-In Central had an exclusive about the expired Netcode it ran in July.

Although apparently SAG-AFTRA was able to achieve “substantial” protections that are apparently “similar” to those achieved after last year’s strikes, SAG-AFTRA did not announce that it achieved AI protections identical to those achieved last year under the Theatrical and Television Agreements.  Furthermoe Union’s use of the word “substantial” is almost indicative of its getting “protections that leave something to be desired.”

Where are stand-ins and others in the Netcode unit vulnerable around AI? SAG-AFTRA doesn’t make a public announcement about it.

The Editor can say this: Based on this announcement, no stand-ins know what AI protections they have, nor do they know what a producer under then Netcode can do or not do with them, relative to AI. (“Thanks for that helping hand, SAG-AFTRA.”)

New W&Ws?

SAG-AFTRA held Wages & Working Conditions meetings (W&Ws) back in Spring 2024 around Netcode work, in advance of the June 2024 expiry of the Netcode.

The achievements in the 2024 Netcode extension don’t appear to be reminiscent of anything creative any SAG-AFTRA member might have proposed in those W&Ws. Basically, this extension increases wages, plus provides some AI protections that maybe the Union mostly hammered out with other, non-Netcode producers — and nothing else really fancy.

So, the question is whether SAG-AFTRA will hold new W&Ws perhaps in Spring 2025 in advance of its possible June 2025 negotiations for a three-year successor agreement to the Netcode?

If past is prologue, then the past is that the negotiations over the Netcode that expired in June 2021 did not lead to a tentative agreement until nearly a year later, meaning any bargaining proposals SAG-AFTRA members generated from the earlier 2021 W&Ws were more than a year old by the time SAG-AFTRA reached a 2022 tentative agreement. SAG-AFTRA did not hold “refresher” W&Ws between 2021 and 2022.

So, as for prologue,  it might be expected that any bargaining proposals SAG-AFTRA members generated during the Spring 2024 W&Ws may finally gasp their first breath in June 2025, over a year later.

And what if you have any new bargaining proposals  coming to your mind after the Spring 2024 W&Ws, or maybe under the current extended Netcode — maybe proposals related to or in response to these new AI protections, hm?

If SAG-AFTRA does not hold new W&Ws in advance of the Netcode expiry on June 30, 2025 (or more specifically, the negotiations deadline of June 2, 2025), there may not be an appropriate venue for making those proposals known in advance of June 2025.

In effect, if SAG-AFTRA doesn’t offer new W&Ws related to the eventual expiration of this extended agreement, SAG-AFTRA may be bargaining based on stale ideas, not fresh ones.

Was the Extension Agreement Actually Effective When SAG-AFTRA Announced It?

On August 1, 2024, the day after SAG-AFTRA’s announcement of the Netcode extension, The Editor dropped an email to a lawyer at SAG-AFTRA, requesting a copy of the extension agreement in advance of Netcode work The Editor had on Saturday, August 3.

The Editor found out from the SAG-AFTRA lawyer that the 2024 Netcode extension was not fully executed as of this lawyer’s reply at 4:03pm Eastern Time on August 3. He wrote:

We are presently waiting for the agreement to be fully executed, and it will be made available once that occurs.

So, it would seem that despite SAG-AFTRA’s announcement on July 31, all the parties to the Netcode had not yet signed it. Furthermore, for that reason, SAG-AFTRA would not make it available for reading.

What is problematic about that denial of availability is that any Netcode unit employees working under the terms of the extension agreement before the extension agreement is made available will not know the provisions, especially with respect to AI protections.

So, Netcode stand-ins put into an AI-related situation before SAG-AFTRA makes available the extension agreement may not know how to navigate the situation — and end up finding themselves vulnerable or exploited, without recourse after the fact.

The next day (Friday, August 2), at 4:40pm, Eastern Time, the lawyer provided additional “clarity” (opacity?) about the AI provisions of the Netcode extension:

You are free as always to either sign or not sign a consent to scan if presented with such a document.

If you have any specific questions regarding AI terms presented to you, please contact the business representative at SAG-AFTRA for that particular production, and they will follow up with you directly.

Keep in mind SAG-AFTRA’s response was late on a Friday, in advance of Saturday work when SAG-AFTRA’s offices are closed.

After soon after asking for the name of The Editor’s business representative for that particular production, the lawyer didn’t get back in touch with The Editor until Monday — two days after the Saturday work was done. (“Thanks for that helping hand, SAG-AFTRA.”)

In the event SAG-AFTRA has not published the 2024 Netcode extension agreement by the time this post is published, it likely eventually will be found in the Television Live Action Contracts section of the SAG-AFTRA website, under the Agreements tab.

Wait, Don’t SAG-AFTRA Members Have to Vote to Ratify the Netcode Extension?

For many of SAG-AFTRA’s CBAs, SAG-AFTRA members have to vote to ratify them before they go into effect. This means that SAG-AFTRA members can vote down a proposed CBA, in which case SAG-AFTRA and the producers must continue to negotiate.

So, naturally, one might wonder whether SAG-AFTRA members should have voted on whether to extend the Netcode and agree to the provisions negotiated in the Netcode extension.

If you recall, during the earlier days of the pandemic, the Return To Work Agreement (RTWA) as a CBA at play then on some SAG-AFTRA unit work, but it went into effect without SAG-AFTRA member ratification. So, that is a large-scale SAG-AFTRA CBA in recent memory that went into effect without member ratification.

SAG-AFTRA’s current Constitution is helpful to explain why the Netcode extension did not require SAG-AFTRA membership ratification. Under Article XI, “Approval of Collective Bargaining Agreements,” at (B)(2) starting on pg. 38, the Union’s Constitution reads:

Membership ratification shall not be required for any collective bargaining agreement that the National Board determines is not to be used in widespread or industry-wide application affecting a substantial portion of the membership and interim contracts that are of short duration or that reflect the Union’s last, best and final offer to an existing employer or employer group. Such agreements shall require approval by either sixty percent (60%) of the votes of the National Board present and voting or sixty percent (60%) of the votes of the Executive Committee present and voting. This provision shall not affect Local collective bargaining agreements that are subject to ratification by the affected members of the Local pursuant to the Local Constitution.

It would appear that the Netcode extension fits under the “interim contracts” label, with SAG-AFTRA finding a one-year extension meeting the qualification of s a “short duration.” Thereby, SAG-AFTRA “Membership ratification shall not be required.”

With that said, notice what happened here in this particular Netcode agreement:

SAG-AFTRA achieves AI provisions for its unit,
but its unit doesn’t vote whether to accept or reject those provisions.

Effectively, this means that the Netcode now has certain minimum AI provisions come 2025 negotiations.

Although that may sound great, but if these are not provisions the unit would have accepted, then this Netcode extension is a twisted attempt by SAG-AFTRA to muscle unsatisfactory AI provisions into Netcode work, making it harder to negotiate them differently to the satisfaction of its unit come 2025.

Recall that other unions in 2023 were able to negotiate guarantees that their workers were humans, but SAG-AFTRA did not negotiate that provision in 2023. Although at the present time it is uncertain whether the “similar” AI provisions SAG-AFTRA achieved in the Netcode extension require unit employees to be human, if that is a bargaining point important to members but that SAG-AFTRA did not put into this extension, SAG-AFTRA members might have voted it down.

But now, hypothetically, without a vote on the Netcode extension, SAG-AFTRA members would be stuck with provisions they would have likely rejected, with SAG-AFTRA put into an uphill position to negotiate differently in 2025. And given hypothetically SAG-AFTRA forced  unspecified AI provisions down its members’ throats (so to speak), it seems unlikely SAG-AFTRA would try to muck much with the AI minimums it achieved with the Netcode extension in 2025 negotiations.

Providing SAG-AFTRA members the opportunity to vote on the Netcode extension seems like a wise thing to do if it was going to add in AI protections for the first time to the Netcode. However, SAG-AFTRA denied its members the opportunity to vote on the topic.

Did SAG-AFTRA have a choice whether to send the Netcode extension to vote? The short answer is “Yes,” based on Article XI(B)(1), which reads:

All multi-employer collective bargaining agreements that are national in scope shall be approved by the National Board and
submitted for ratification by the members affected thereby. Such ratification may be made either (a) by majority vote of the members voting in a referendum conducted by mail or electronic means under policies and procedures established by the National Board, or (b) by majority vote of the members voting in meetings held in accordance with policies and procedures established by the National Board.

The Netcode is a multi-employer CBA national in scope, and the National Board can establish the policies and procedure around voting on its extension, so there was an option for SAG-AFTRA members to vote on it.

Also, Article XI(B)(2) states that “Membership ratification shall not be required” for CBAs, but that is not the same thing as stating “Membership ratification must not be required” for CBAs, or “Membership ratification is denied” for CBAs. In other words, membership ratification of the Netcode extension was a possibility — and SAG-AFTRA did not extend the possibility to its membership.

Conclusion

Hey, although it’s great to see the Netcode extended with some pay raises and AI protections, the opacity of SAG-AFTRA around its negotiations continues.

This opacity is arguably hilarious given the Union recently ran two podcast episodes titled “Demystifying Contract Negotiations.”

Given how SAG-AFTRA handled communication around these Netcode negotiations, and how it did not release the exact language of the Netcode extension when it announced the extension, it seems SAG-AFTRA remains in the business of conducting mystifying contract negotiations despite its apparent attempts to “demystify” them.

With that said, here are the two podcast episodes, in case you’d like to hear what SAG-AFTRA leaves out about its contract negotiations:

What do you think of the 2024 Netcode extension? Are you a stand-in who works under the Netcode with an opinion? Share your thoughts in the comments box below!