It’s not over, everybody. Hours before Hollywood was preparing to reward a lucky few of its members with an Academy Award, the Screen Actors Guild on Saturday announced that it voted 73% to 27% to reject the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers’ latest and “last” offer dated Feb. 19. The board took issue with the conglomerates’ “last-minute, surprise demand” to extend the proposed deal to March 2012 — meaning the new SAG contract, if approved, would expire several months after those achieved by the other Hollywood unions.
“The last-minute…demand for a new term of agreement extending to 2012 is regressive and damaging and clearly signals the employers’ unwillingness to agree to the deal they established with other entertainment unions,” according to a SAG statement. “The demand for a new term of agreement was not part of their final offer of June 20, 2008.”
That was before talks between the two sides dragged on…and on. According to an AMPTP source, SAG wants its new deal to expire around spring of 2011 — roughly the time when the three-year agreements are set to end for the WGA, DGA, and AFTRA (the other actor’s union). Since it’s taken many months to achieve a pact with SAG, however, the congloms don’t appear eager to reward the actors with a shorter deal that expires at the same time as everybody else — thus the extension. But the AMPTP offered a compromise: should SAG and AFTRA kiss, make up, and bargain together in 2011, the new contract will go into effect for both unions and the remaining months on SAG’s previous deal would disappear. But SAG wasn’t buying it.
“The AMPTP intends to de-leverage our bargaining position from this point forward,” the SAG statement said. “The AMPTP has clearly stated their need and desire for financial certainty and industry peace. This new proposal does the exact opposite, and will only result in constant negotiating cycles and continued labor unrest.”
The AMPTP responded with this statement: “The Producers’ offer is strong and fair — and has been judged to be strong and fair by all of Hollywood’s other major guilds and unions. We have kept our offer on the table — and even enhanced it — despite the historically unprecedented economic crisis that has clobbered our nation and our industry.
“The producers have always sought a full three-year deal with SAG, just as we negotiated with all the other unions and guilds, and have offered SAG a way to achieve an earlier expiration date without contributing to further labor uncertainty. We simply cannot offer SAG a better deal than the rest of the industy achieved under far better economic conditions than those now confronting our industry.”
Comments (1-8) of 8 Add your comment
For the love of whatever various Gods you actors believe in, take the deal!
for the love of god, please take the deal and allow for the rest of us to keep our jobs!
Yeah folks,go on strike asking for more,piss off the American people and screw up entertainment in the biggest recession you’ve ever lived through.Good work!
People who are telling SAG to take the deal are blinded by the completely false assumption that actors all make millions.
do you know how ridiculously hard it is for an actor to have healthcare in this country, let alone make a living in this business? How easily producers are sidestepping union contracts now with the internet and almost completely doing away with the benefits of cable content?
You want actors to not go on strike? How about you complain to the producers union and tell them to stop treating actors like PRODUCT and treat them like workers with families.
Is SAG the good guy? No, there’s a lot (re: a lot) wrong with the union and its leadership. But in this fight, you better believe they are in the right.
Here’s a thought. Why don’t the top Hollywood actors agree to a cap of $300/hour for their services? That would net them in the ball park of $500K/year (provided they actually work a full week 52 weeks a year) which should be more than enough for a reasonable person to live on. With costs reduced for the big name Hollywood folks, studios would have more money to dole out to their lesser known fellow actors. There is a huge salary gap between the top dogs and the rank and file, but it isn’t just in the corporate industries Hollywood personalities love to attack. A little self-examination might be due.
Whether you think SAG is in the right or not, the fact remains that if they go on strike in this economy – asking for more money at a time when millions are losing their jobs or taking pay cuts, and will be doing so knowing they will put many, many others out of work to get their fair share – they will be seen as public enemy number one. The producers have been brilliant at sitting back and letting SAG do all the talking and thus, setting themselves up to look like spoiled, greedy actors. Both sides are greedy in their own ways, but SAG is in a no win situation here – but the lesser of two evils, in this economic environment, is to accept the increase they have been offered (whether they deem it fair or not, it is an increase – so many don’t even have that option) and fight this battle another day.
Yawn, seriously this is like a MLB strike… no matter what the excuse, who really cares?
Yeah I like movies, but I don’t like them enough to care about some spoiled union-wannabe actors.
nicolas waters i view your profile in web my home page,thank’s love from sud italy vitt