SCREEN ACTORS GUILD (SAG)

SAG STRIKE UPDATE

2009

February 25 - Hollywood studios are trying to take advantage of the disarray within the Screen Actors Guild by trying to lock the union into a contract that would expire a year after similar deals with other unions.

Months of stalled negotiations have weakened the position of the 120,000- member actors' union, and led to the departure of its top negotiator.

A hard-line stance from the union's leadership has slowed SAG from sealing a deal. The studios now want the actors to sign a contract that would expire a year after agreements struck by other unions. SAG's national board rejected that offer over the weekend, saying such a deal would weaken SAG's power during the next round of bargaining.

In Hollywood, labor agreements are usually struck through pattern bargaining. That process allows various unions -- including those for writers and directors -- to negotiate one after the other for stronger deals. The other unions' contracts expire in the spring of 2011, but the proposed SAG contract would expire roughly in March 2012.

February 20 – Negotiations between actors and the Hollywood studios broke down, dashing high hopes for a quick resolution in a stalemate that has kept the union's 120,000 members working without a new contract for seven months. 

The Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the studios, ended talks after just three days. No further talks are scheduled.

Actors' optimism that a new contract would be quickly hammered out swelled after moderates on the SAG board mounted a rebellion last month against the leadership, firing the union's executive director and installing a new negotiating team led by SAG consultant John McGuire. 

Directors had complained that former chief negotiator Doug Allen mishandled talks and vowed to move swiftly toward a deal. 

But those efforts appear to have been thwarted by a tougher-than-expected bargaining posture by studios, which are increasingly impatient as their own businesses are squeezed by a deep recession. 

Unlike their predecessors, the new SAG negotiators indicated that they were prepared to accept the studios' long-standing demand to accept a new-media pay framework already agreed to by three other Hollywood unions. 

In return, the studios offered some "tweaks" to their previous "final offer," agreeing, for example, to drop a proposal that would have eliminated scheduled meal breaks. They also offered to increase from two to five the number of background performers who would be covered under the contract and provide residual payments for stunt coordinators. 

Such concessions, however, weren't enough to break an impasse over the seemingly mundane issues of when the contract would go into effect and how long it would last. 

SAG wanted proposed pay increases for actors to be retroactive to July 1, 2008. Studios, however, said they couldn't afford that as their profits plunge in a worsening economy. 

The union also insisted that a new contract extend for two years instead of the usual three years so that its expiration would align with that of other Hollywood unions, which would give all the unions more leverage in future negotiations. 

The studios said a two-year pact would create instability. SAG rejected their alternative.

2008

November 28 - SAG's "educational campaign" toward strike authorization began with a pre-Thanksgiving Q&A e-mail to its members. The seven-page message was the first of many expected from the actors union in the coming weeks, leading up to a strike-authorization vote slated for December.

"We need to show management that we are willing to fight to preserve our ability to earn a living as union performers; otherwise, management will take that away from us," SAG said. "Nearly half of our earnings as union performers come from residuals, but management wants us to allow them to make programs for the Internet and other new media nonunion (productions) and with no residuals."

"Your leadership believes that we must be empowered with the real threat of a work stoppage in order to let management know that we are committed to protecting the future of all actors."

"SAG's latest mass e-mail fails on three counts: It fails to explain why SAG deserves more than everyone else in the industry," the AMPTP said. It fails to justify why SAG members should bail out a failed negotiating strategy by striking during a time of historic economic crisis. And it fails to explain why it makes sense to strike when SAG members will lose more during the first few days of the strike than they could ever expect to gain."

SAG has said that "the bad economy means that it will require more of a sacrifice from some of our members if in fact a strike becomes necessary, but remember that this union was founded and obtained its first contract during the depths of the Great Depression. Hard times do not mean that we stop demanding fair treatment from management."

November 26 - For years, people in Hollywood have casually dismissed the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) as the craziest union in creation. Apparently they weren't exaggerating. After getting nowhere during months of on-again, off-again talks with the studios, SAG has now opted to pursue a strike authorization vote from its 120,000 members.  (The union has been working without a contract since June 30.) If this is meant as some kind of threat designed to drag the studios back to the negotiating table, SAG is even more deluded than anyone believed possible.

SAG's goal is pretty obvious. The guild hopes that by getting a big strike mandate from its membership--a strike referendum requires 75% approval from members who cast ballots--it can use the threat of a disruption of the Academy Awards to force studios to negotiate a better deal. But according to most insiders I have spoken to, no one takes the threat seriously--they don't believe the strike will happen. Why not?

1) First, the economy sucks. Most SAG members don't work regularly, at least not at acting. They've got real jobs, whether it's at Starbucks, waiting tables, doing construction, teaching or running small businesses. No one wants to risk losing the jobs they have that actually pay the bills. So fewer people have the pie-in-the-sky attitude that usually fuels SAG strike votes from all those members who aren't working TV or film jobs. Normally, they'd say, What have I got to lose by a strike? I'm not working anyway. But too many members are clinging to their side jobs, which has a sobering effect on anyone considering the value of a misguided strike.

2) The Writers Guild strike (WGA) felt right. They weren't asking for the moon, and the studios, having boasted for so long about their profitability, had the money to give. But in the midst of a dire economic crisis, SAG is asking for concessions that no other union got in their negotiations last winter. They have been standing firm in seeking an increase in actor residuals from DVD sales, a demand that the studios will never agree to. It's foolhardy, not to mention unrealistic, to expect that SAG members will join the guild leadership in what is obviously a kamikaze mission.

3) The WGA was united. SAG is divided. On one flank, it has AFTRA, a more conservative sister guild that is quietly poised to recruit more actors and gain more clout for future negotiations. On the other flank, it has a group of actors, endorsed by such respected, high-profile SAG members as Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and Sally Field, who've made it clear that they want nothing to do with a suicidal strike in the midst of hard times. There are even more stars who haven't issued public declarations for the dissidents who privately support their cause. If necessary, the stars will exercise their clout, blitzing members with reminders of the folly of a showdown with the studios.

4) When the WGA went out on strike, there was a true sense of solidarity with other guilds, notably SAG, based on the feeling that the studios had pushed their hand too far. In early negotiations, it looked like what the studios really wanted was a rollback in residuals and other guild benefits. The WGA had the high moral ground. SAG today doesn't have similar support. The Writers Guild will surely offer soothing words of solidarity, but the true believers aren't there this time around. SAG will have to go it alone. But timing is everything. And you don't have to read a newspaper or watch TV to know that the timing for a Hollywood actors strike couldn't be worse. The WGA got tons of support from the media, not to mention regular Joes who identified with their cause. But with more people losing their jobs every day, SAG is about to discover that most people will view them as rebels without a cause.

October 21 - The Screen Actors Guild's board of directors agreed to ask a federal mediator help with negotiations with the film and TV studios, which could get the producers guild (the AMPTP) and SAG to sit down for their first formal talks since their contract expired on June 30.

The studios have reiterated that SAG has "no justification" to expect a better deal than what the other guilds negotiated, especially since the economy is now worse.

Moving forward, SAG won't be acting alone. SAG approved an agreement outlining joint bargaining with AFTRA for a new commercials contract. After a five-month extension agreed to by SAG and AFTRA as well as the Joint Policy Committee they'll be negotiating with, the contract expires March 31, 2009. This summer AFTRA settled its own contract, refusing to wait around for SAG. But now SAG has some new leadership in place and leadership is determined to collaborate with AFTRA to increase their negotiating power.

October 1 - In an open letter sent to the AMPTP, SAG President Alan Rosenberg and National Executive Director Doug Allen proposed that the two sides focus on three issues, one involving "force majeure" protection and the two others involving new media. The letter warned, "If your intransigence continues, however, our choices become harder and fewer." Late in the day, AMPTP President Nick Counter responded, saying that talks would not be productive unless SAG is prepared to change its position on those issues, essentially tossing the "intransigence" accusation back into SAG's lap. "We do not believe that it would be productive to resume negotiations at this time given SAG's continued insistence on terms which the companies have repeatedly rejected."

September 19 - SAG leadership opponents won a majority of the 11 Hollywood Division seats on the union's national Board of Directors in results that could change the direction of negotiations with studios.

Six members of the Unite for Strength slate (Amy Brenneman, Adam Arkin, Ken Howard, Pamela Reed, Kate Walsh and Morgan Fairchild) were elected. The Membership First slate (Scott Bakula, Keith Carradine, Joely Fisher, Lainie Kazan), which supports guild President Alan Rosenberg, won the other five Hollywood Division national board seats.

Turnout was nearly 25 percent of the approximately 55,000 eligible to vote.

Unite for Strength made a merger with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the smaller of the performers' unions, its top priority. Unite for Strength's leaders believe a merger would result in more clout for the union in negotiations.

The results of the Hollywood Division election and support from allies in the New York Division and Regional Branch Division gives Unite for Strength a majority on the national board.

September 13 - AMPTP has inked another deal with the casting directors and casting associates unions and suggested that the latest contract is an indication that Hollywood was indeed back to work.

"The casting director agreement is the fifth labor pact negotiated by the producers so far this year and, along with four major guild agreements with AFTRA, WGA and DGA, the latest indication that our industry is now back to work."

The statement is a gentle reminder that SAG has yet to accept the AMPTP's final offer, which was presented to the guild's negotiating committee June 30.

The AMPTP has also reached a tentative deal with the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, which represents the casting directors after three days of negotiations.

September 12 - No Screen Actors Guild election would be complete without controversy, as evidenced by the latest drama inside Hollywood's most discordant trade union. Next week, nearly one-third of SAG's 71 national board seats will be up for grabs in an election that could change the course of the organization.

But even before ballots have been counted, dissident board candidates are fuming over the timing of a "special bulletin."

The bulletin was recently mailed to the guild's 120,000 members at an estimated cost of more than $100,000. The 12-page report went far beyond the typical contract update and included a detailed critique of the studios' offer. It warned that the studios sought to "take away many of the protections the union has fought so hard for" while denying such basic demands as a 10-cent increase in the mileage rate for actors.

The mailer also included response cards asking members whether they supported accepting the studios' offer or wanted to continue negotiating to secure a better deal.

New York board members also have questioned why the response cards contain bar codes that would allow SAG to identify how individual members voted, saying that would violate a long tradition of anonymous voting.

SAG stated that the poll was simply intended to sample member views on the studios' proposals and contract negotiations. The bar code was aimed at preventing fraud and permitting a demographic analysis of the responses.

September 10 - As SAG heads into the third month of its contract stalemate with the majors, there’s mounting evidence that the uncertainty about SAG’s future is helping rival union AFTRA make inroads in primetime.

Insiders at TV’s major studios say that in situations where the studio has the option to pick between the these unions, there has been a stronger inclination to do broadcast network pilots and series under an AFTRA contract rather than with SAG.

SAG has exclusive jurisdiction over network primetime skeins shot on film; SAG and AFTRA have shared jurisdiction over pilots and series shot on video. With more and more series shot on digital vid, however, AFTRA has had more opportunities in the past few years to land network primetime series, particularly dramas.

If SAG calls a strike, even a dual SAG-AFTRA member would be obligated to continue working if under contract to an AFTRA-covered show.

Beyond the short-term strike threat, studio brass say they’ve generally grown wary of SAG and its recent management turmoil and bitter factional fighting.

September 1 - The summertime standoff between Hollywood studios and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) yielded some useful lessons for executives interested in honing their negotiating skills.

SAG has continued to reject an offer from the studios' negotiating arm, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, to replace a contract that expired in June. As with the writers and directors before them, SAG is focused on winning better terms for any revenue derived from new media entertainment, such as sitcoms that are downloaded from the Internet.

What does the standoff indicate about AMPTP negotiation strategy?

Stay consistent. The studios' main strategy has been to stick closely to the terms it negotiated with writers and directors. Consistency is wise in this case since using an existing template allows studios to claim they are being fair — and protects them from requests to renegotiate contractual structures that have already been agreed to.

Divide and conquer. Even as SAG was digging in, the studios won an early settlement with a second, smaller actors' union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Actors. Since 44,000 AFTRA members are also part of 120,000-member SAG, the agreement had the side benefit of exposing a lack of solidarity among the actors.

Which brings us to a final lesson about what not to do: "Never interfere with your enemy if it's destroying itself."

August 30 - The performers unions and advertising industry have agreed to a five-month extension on commercial performer contracts to March 31, 2009, while the two sides continue to jointly study alternative compensation methods in the digital age.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), and the ad industry's Joint Policy Committee on Broadcast Talent Union Relations (JPC) agreed to the extension.
 

They are currently working under a two-year contract extension agreed to two years ago that would have have expired Oct. 29, 2008.

AFTRA said the terms of the two-year extension remain the same. In that extension, terms remain the same. According to those terms, actors got a 6% pay boost, a .5% increase in employer contributions to union pension and health plans, and the contract covered commercials on new media like cell phones and other mobile players.

Advertisers got more flexibility to edit ads for new media and will be allowed to experiment with shorter ad cycles for the Internet and other digital platforms.

July 28 - Producers and SAG have settled in for continued sniping as SAG’s national board voted unanimously (68-0) Saturday to back its negotiating committee’s stance that the majors’ final offer is unacceptable in the new-media provisions.