His actors’ union negotiators Hollywood unanimously voted in favor of organizing a strike after negotiations with Hollywood studios broke down, paving the way for the artists to join the screenwriters in their actions as early as Thursday.

The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA said his national council would vote on a strike order today. If approved, Hollywood studios would face their first double strike in 63 years and be forced to halt production across the United States.

Both SAG-AFTRA — Hollywood’s largest union with 160,000 members — and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are demanding increases in base pay and residuals (financial compensation paid to actors, directors and others artists involved in TV shows and movies in cases of repeats, rebroadcasts, DVD releases, or streaming media) in the age of TV streaming (continuous transmission) and ensure that their work is not replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).

Fran Dresser, former star of the TV series “The Nanny” and president of SAG-AFTRA, said the studios’ responses to the actors’ concerns were “insulting and brazen.”

“The companies have effectively refused to commit on some issues and on others have put up walls against us,” he said in a statement after the deadline for actors to agree to a new contract expired at midnight on Wednesday (local time). “Until they actually negotiate in good faith we cannot begin to approach an agreement,” he added.

THE Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP)which is negotiating on behalf of Netflix, Walt Disney and other companies, expressed “deep disappointment that SAG-AFTRA has decided to walk away from negotiations.”

It claimed to have offered “historic salary and compensation increases” and filed “a ground-breaking AI proposal that protects the digital likeness of actors.” Actors are concerned that their digital images will be used without their permission or normal compensation.

The strike by some 11,500 writers resulted in an endless rerun of late-night TV talk shows, disrupted most productions for the fall TV season and halted work on big-budget movies.

A SAG-AFTRA strike would shut down the remaining US-based studio productions and put more pressure on media companies to find a solution.

Hollywood has not faced two simultaneous strikes since 1960, when members of the WGA and the Screen Actors Guild went on strike to demand compensation from the sale of films to television networks.

Today unions are fighting for basic wages and benefits from streaming services.

“We have to pay $26,000 a year for health insurance and there are a lot of people who don’t make it through their compensation payments,” actor Matt Damon said at a promotional event for the film “Oppenheimer” on Wednesday.

“Money comes out somewhere and it has to be distributed in a way that people on the margins are cared for,” added Matt Damon.

Many streaming services, however, have yet to turn a profit after the companies spent billions of dollars on programming to try and attract customers.

The Disney, Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal and Paramount Global they each lost a million dollars from streaming in the last quarter. At the same time, the rise of online video has undermined TV ad revenue as traditional TV audiences shrink.

The WGA strike is affecting all of California and beyond, hitting catering, stagehandling and other occupations that depend on Hollywood productions. The financial loss is expected to expand if the actors also go on strike.

TV networks have already announced fall schedules full of reality shows, unaffected by the current labor tensions. Independent productions not covered by union contracts may also continue.