AFTRA accepts deal
Union members ratify primetime deal
by DAVE MCNARY

Members of the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists have ratified the union's primetime deal, spurning SAG's avid campaigning to vote down the contract

AFTRA said 62% of those voting supported the deal. Announcement came Tuesday evening following a month of bitter battling between the thesp unions.

The ratification was not a surprise due to the faltering economy and the lingering impact of the 100-day WGA strike. Terms in the AFTRA pact mirror those in the contracts signed by the WGA and DGA, along with the majors' final offer to SAG.

The results represent a slap to SAG leadership, which has held out for a better deal with the implied threat of a strike. SAG has yet to take a strike authorization vote and - given the AFTRA vote -- it's highly doubtful that it could achieve the needed 75% endorsement for a work stoppage.

SAG had been hoping that a defeat of the AFTRA deal would give it the increased leverage it needs to obtain better terms. Instead, it now faces the unsavory prospect of AFTRA signing up new shows shot on digital - an area of shared jurisdiction - with the new contract.

Ballots went out to all 70,000 AFTRA members, including 44,000 SAG members who belong to both unions. Alec Baldwin, Sally Field, Tom Hanks and Susan Sarandon backed the AFTRA deal while Viggo Mortensen, Jack Nicholson, Nick Nolte and Martin Sheen endorsed SAG's anti-AFTRA stance.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers broke off negotiations by delivering the final offer on June 30, a few hours before SAG's feature-primetime contract expired. Actors have been working since on some TV programs under terms of the expired deal; SAG's also granted waivers to over 355 indie features.

The AMPTP announced Tuesday morning that the meeting with SAG had been set and added, "The Producers remain hopeful that SAG will accept our final offer."

SAG had contended that actors deserve sweeter terms in areas such as new media, DVD residuals and salary minimums. AFTRA argued that approval will put the industry back to work and that the deal includes gains in salaries and new media without rollbacks or concessions

Screen Actors Guild aims to thwart AFTRA contract with studios
A campaign is urging dual-union members to vote down a deal. Stars are on both sides of the battle line
by RICHARD VERRIER

Some actors are lining up behind Tom Hanks. Others are backing Jack Nicholson.

No, this is not an Oscar race. It's the campaign over a new contract for Hollywood actors, and the two movie stars are on opposing sides regarding what to do about it.

Welcome to the civil war that has turned Hollywood upside down and is fast diminishing the prospects of a peaceful resolution between actors and studios

With the entertainment industry's major contract with actors set to expire at midnight, Hollywood is bracing for its second period of labor unrest this year. But this time the turmoil is exacerbated by an ugly family feud that is pitting actor against actor.

In recent weeks the dominant actors union, the Screen Actors Guild, has mounted a highly unusual campaign to scuttle a new agreement negotiated by the smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The effort -- targeted at 44,000 members who belong to both unions -- has split the ranks of actors, with stars lining up on opposite sides as their leaders trade daily barbs in e-mail blasts to their members.

"I've never seen anything like this," said former SAG President Richard Masur, who is a member of SAG's national board. He called his union's campaign "incredibly divisive."

Masur is among more than 600 actors including Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin who recently signed a letter in support of the AFTRA accord, which they describe as a good agreement. "If this deal doesn't pass it will take us to a place from which we may not recover," the actors warned.

SAG, however, has lined up its share of high-profile backers, including Nicholson, Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, who delivered a personal message of support posted on the union's website.

"We have right on our side and we ought to support our SAG negotiating team," said Mortensen, a star of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Then there's a third camp led by George Clooney, who staked out a middle ground by calling on both unions to end their warring and stop "pitting artist against artist."

AFTRA's tentative contract includes pay hikes for actors and is modeled on similar pacts negotiated by writers and directors. But SAG leaders say it doesn't address their bargaining goals, such as increasing the residuals that actors earn from DVD sales, giving them a say in how products are pitched in TV programs and ensuring that all shows created for the Web are covered under the union's contracts.

SAG is spending as much as $150,000 in a barrage of ads, automated phone calls and e-mails to urge joint members to vote down the agreement. Results of the vote by AFTRA's full membership will be announced July 8 and could be a litmus test for whether SAG has enough support to wage a strike. AFTRA, which has 70,000 members, has called the effort a "politically motivated disinformation campaign."

Regardless of the vote results, it's highly unlikely that the unions will patch up their differences any time soon, given their long history of sparring over turf. The two unions have clashed for years over which group can lay claim to actors who work in cable television, and now the battle is shifting to the more high-stakes world of prime-time TV.

Although the 120,000-member SAG currently dominates prime time and feature films, the rival union is poised to eventually capture a number of new prime-time dramas and sitcoms, thanks in some part to friendlier relations with the studios.

That could give AFTRA a level of clout it hasn't seen since the 1970s and '80s, when the federation represented actors in such hit sitcoms as "The Cosby Show," "All in the Family" and "The Facts of Life." It also could pose a serious competitive threat to SAG, given that AFTRA already dominates reality programs and daytime television.

AFTRA currently covers nine prime-time shows, including the HBO comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and the new CBS series "Project Gary." The federation represented 22 prime-time pilots produced this year and all the actors in them, up from 16 last year. By comparison, SAG represented 33 produced pilots.

The unions have had an uneasy alliance since 1981, when they formed a joint bargaining pact that recently fizzled after AFTRA accused SAG of attempting to poach one of its soaps, "The Bold and the Beautiful," a claim disputed by SAG and the show's star, Susan Flannery.

Leighton backs SAG's demand for tougher consent rules over use of an actor's image in online clips, but she said it was not worth losing her job - her first acting gig outside of commercials. "Too many people would be put out of work," Leighton said. "It's just not worth it. The economy is already iffy, and it would just crush the local economy."

For most of the last two decades, the unions had largely respected each other's jurisdictional boundaries: AFTRA handled shows "recorded live," reflecting its origins in radio, and most programs shot on videotape, while SAG had dibs on everything captured on film.

But those lines have been blurred in recent years as more shows are shot with digital technology, supplanting the older formats. Each guild claims jurisdiction over digital, setting the stage for conflict, especially in cable TV, in which AFTRA has made significant inroads.

In the last four years, for example, AFTRA's share of scripted dramatic basic cable shows has grown to 55% from 15% as the union signed deals with producers of such shows as "Army Wives" on Lifetime and FX's "Dirt." During the same period, SAG says its share has shrunk to 45% from 85%.

Producers and studio executives praise AFTRA for being easy to work with and willing to tailor contracts that reflect the tight budgets of cable TV shows, which are a fraction of those on network television.

"They showed a willingness to appreciate the financial difficulties of making quality at a price," said Stan Rogow, who produced the NBC kids drama series "Flight 29 Down" in 2005 under an AFTRA contract.

Unlike terms for prime-time television, which the unions have until recently negotiated jointly, contracts for scripted dramatic cable programs are hammered out separately, often leading to widely divergent contract terms that can yield big differences in how much actors are paid.

Indeed, every time Rondell Sheridan sees a repeat of "Cory in the House" he cringes. Not about his performance as Cory's dad, he said, but because he has yet to collect a penny in residuals, the extra payments that actors get from reruns.

That's hard to take given that he has collected several hundred thousand dollars in residuals from his work on "That's So Raven," the hit cable series that spawned the "Cory" spinoff.

Although both shows appeared on the Disney Channel, "Raven" was made under a SAG contract whereas "Cory" was covered under an AFTRA contract.

"You're doing the same job and making less money than you did the last time," Sheridan said. "I felt betrayed."

SAG Executive Director Doug Allen seized on the issue a year ago, when he wrote a controversial article in the guild's magazine that accused AFTRA of signing "bargain-basement" agreements with cable producers to undermine pay terms negotiated by SAG.

"They're acting like we're Hertz and they're Avis," Allen said in an interview. "They've been trying to gain market share by undercutting our contracts." AFTRA says such criticisms are spurious, arguing that its contracts reflect economic realities of low-budget cable shows and have enabled some programs to exist that might not otherwise, thereby creating more work for union members.

"Analyzing the question as a zero-sum contest between two unions is ridiculous," said Kim Roberts Hedgpeth, AFTRA's executive director.

Hedgpeth notes that her union played a key role during the early days of cable to ensure that such networks as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central would be covered under union agreements. The federation often renegotiates contracts once shows get their footing. AFTRA, for example, has negotiated a new contact with the producers of "Cory" to improve pay terms, she said.

"Our primary concern," Hedgpeth said, "is making sure that there is work for actors and other performers . . . with the protections of a union contract."

Star wars: actors' strike divides Hollywood
A dispute over pay has brought the movie business to a standstill, and has pitted celebrities against one another
by GUY ADAMS

Jack Nicholson feels betrayed by Tom Hanks; Ben Stiller has fallen out with Sally Field; James Cromwell can't believe what Viggo Mortensen has been saying - and George Clooney wishes everyone could just be friends. A mooted Hollywood actors' strike, which has already virtually shut down the film industry, is sparking civil war between stars of stage and screen, who are being forced to take sides in an increasingly-bitter conflict between their two rival trade unions.

On one side stands the 70,000-member American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which boasts Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Morgan Fair-child and James Cromwell among its most vociferous supporters. On the other is the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), which has been able to mobilise the likes of Jack Nicholson, Joely Fisher, Viggo Mortensen, Martin Sheen and Ben Stiller from its 120,000-strong membership list.

The two organisations have fallen-out in a dispute over contract negotiations with the owners of the major film and television studios. AFTRA has already struck a deal in its pay talks, and is asking members to endorse the agreement next week. But SAG has called for AFTRA members to reject the package.

The dispute went public last week when both unions persuaded supporters to put their names to newspaper adverts criticising their rival organisation. Some of Hollywood's most famous faces are now on opposite sides of a personal and highly charged row.

"To have people at the level of Tom Hanks and Jack Nicholson on opposite sides, one versus another, is a deplorable spectacle," Oscar nominee James Cromwell told The Independent on Sunday yesterday. "Two unions going at each other is never a pretty sight. And in a climate in this country which is already profoundly anti-union, it's also dangerous."

AFTRA supporter Cromwell is upset by what he sees as the underhand tactics of the opposition, criticising SAG's leadership for its "politicisation" of the pay negotiations. "You have, for example, Viggo Mortensen being persuaded to come out and criticise AFTRA. But he has been misinformed about the nature of our deal."

The row is causing a "virtual strike," as major Hollywood shoots are put on hold to avoid disruption until the threat of industrial action is lifted. SAG's supporters want to secure rises in so-called "residual" payments for DVD sales and clips of films screened online. Anne-Marie Johnson, an actress and SAG negotiator, said: "In 2000, my mother became very ill. I had to stop work to spend eight months in hospital. And I relied on residuals to pay my bills. That's why these talks matter."

George Clooney is tackling the role of peacemaker. Last week, he released an open letter, urging both unions to settle their differences.

"What we can't do is pit artist against artist. Because the one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson versus Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power of the major studios," it concluded.

Marxism in Hollywood
by JONATHAN HANDEL

Another day, another denunciation. It's hard to know what the SAG Hollywood leadership is thinking. They've deployed robocalls, trade ads, emails, and more, in a misguided effort to defeat the AFTRA deal. Success is unlikely, but in any case, the result will probably be continued labor paralysis, not progress. After all, AFTRA is not going to strike, nor negotiate jointly with SAG, no matter what the outcome of the ratification vote.

For its part, SAG's also unlikely to strike, since a 75% affirmative vote is required for strike authorization. What's more, we're nowhere near a strike, since the balloting process would apparently take three weeks, and hasn't even been initiated. The guild's own New York, Chicago and San Francisco branches won't support a strike -- and have criticized the anti-AFTRA strategy -- and even SAG's allies at the WGA have been largely silent.

Meanwhile, the guild's negotiations with the studios drag on interminably, with little evident progress. The contract expires Monday night, but that doesn't seem to have heightened the urgency particularly. It's hard to tell whether SAG even has a strategy, or is simply stuck in a morass of overpromised goals and anti-AFTRA animus, mixed in with valid points (force majeure, clip minimums, some aspects of product integration) that might be more achievable were there a greater sense of realism in the rhetoric and tactics.

As we undergo a second Hollywood labor stoppage in less than a year, some explanation, although little comfort, is provided by Karl Marx, once considered a patron saint of the labor movement. Expanding on a remark by Hegel, Marx posited that history repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. This year seems proof of that. One can only hope that twice is the limit, since the SAG commercials contract expires this fall, in case you'd mistakenly thought we were anywhere near done with labor unrest.

Of course, when it comes to legal analysis, Karl is not the most authoritative Marx in a capitalist society. For that -- and particularly in Hollywood -- we turn to Groucho and Chico. In 1935's A Night at the Opera, Groucho describes a contract provision that he refers to as a "sanity clause." Chico is unpersuaded: "You can't fool me," he says, "there ain't no Sanity Claus."

If only there were. Rationality has been in short supply the last twelve months. The Writers Guild and the studios both seemed hell-bent on a strike, and outside voices did little to deter or shorten the experience. A federal mediator had no effect, and even the head of CAA was unable to broker a deal. Only a confluence of circumstances - including the impending destruction of the Oscars -- was enough to end the stalemate. Nothing like a busted awards ceremony to get Hollywood's attention.

Unfortunately, no obvious or immediate deadlines loom this time. Now, as then, some have called on the Governor to intervene, and his experience as both a Terminator and a kindergarten cop would make him well-suited to the task. But there's little upside, and plenty of risk, to the governor in getting involved in a parochial Hollywood dispute, no matter the economic impact. Instead, we seem destined to a war of attrition, as SAG, AFTRA and the studios all jockey for advantage with feature production stalled and television work uncertain. Stay tuned -- if you can stand it.

SAG, studios to talk Sunday
Bargaining recessed early Saturday evening
by DAVE MCNARY

With the expiration of SAG's feature-primetime contract looming, the guild and the majors have agreed to keep working on a possible deal throughout the weekend.

Bargaining recessed early Saturday evening at the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and will resume Sunday. Saturday's talks marked the 40th session between the two sides since talks launched in mid-April.

Though there's no official news blackout, both sides adhered to the usual no-comment policy about the substance of the talks.

SAG's deal expires at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, which means that the no-strike and no-lockout provisions of the contract are no longer in force. However, the companies are not expected to lock out actors and guild still hasn't asked its members for a strike authorization.

Instead, talks are expected to continue though July 8, when results of the ratification vote on AFTRA's primetime deal will be announced. SAG's campaigned actively against the AFTRA pact, contending that the gains in salary, new media residuals and jurisdiction and retention of online clip consent are not sufficient to support the deal.

SAG has 44,000 members who also belong to AFTRA so the results of the ratification vote should provide significant insight into whether SAG's 120,000 members would be willing to go strike. A SAG strike authorization would require 75% approval to go into effect.

In the meantime, the uncertainty over the SAG deal has resulted in studio feature production halting although SAG's granted waivers to over 350 indie features. Series TV production has also ratcheted down but not stopped completely.

AFTRA, which has 70,000 members, has been campaigning actively for its deal and warning that voting it down could lead to a strike by SAG. And it's emphasized that its gains in new media are in line with the DGA and WGA contract advances.

As of Saturday, over 3,000 SAG members had backed a "solidarity" endorsement of its negotiating committee's goals, which include the assertion that the terms of the AFTRA deal aren't sufficient.

Strike 2? Hollywood braces for actor walkout
by DAVID GERMAIN

Hollywood loves a good sequel, but here's one it could do without: Another union strike just months after the town got up and running again from a devastating walkout by writers.

The contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expires Monday, and negotiations have dragged on for weeks with no apparent headway.

SAG leaders have said they are willing to continue talking beyond the contract deadline. Yet their hard-line rhetoric and a squabble with another actors union could put performers on the sidelines, taking electricians, set-builders, caterers and other Hollywood working stiffs along with them. "If you're a below-the-line worker, your blood is probably running cold, because they're the ones that took the biggest hit from the writers strike," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., which estimates the WGA walkout cost the town $2.5 billion in lost wages and other revenue.

A strike in July - or a potential actors lockout if producers decided to play tough - could delay the return of many fall TV shows, which normally would be going back into production then.

With a longer lead time, big-screen movies generally are in good shape through the early part of summer 2009, with studios rushing to finish production on most films before the actors' contract expired.

A few films such as "The Hannah Montana Movie" and Tom Hanks' "Angels & Demons" could be forced to shut down if a strike occurred. A long walkout could postpone movies scheduled to start shooting late this summer and fall, including Russell Crowe's "Nottingham."

"The possibility of another strike, especially in this economy, has the town on edge, including the thousands of guild and crew members who are still recovering from the last strike," said Jesse Hiestand, spokesman for the producers alliance.

Big action films could ride out a short strike by turning to other work while actors were off. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of next summer's sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," said the filmmakers factored in a hiatus where they can get by without actors, working on visual effects instead.

But it would be another blow to an industry that remains in a stall after the writers strike.

"It's not been a complete shutdown, but everybody's been working at pretty minimal capacity the last nine months," di Bonaventura said. "The pain everybody felt over the last nine months certainly makes the prospect of another strike even more foreboding."

While the Writers Guild of America went on strike in general solidarity among members, SAG is a house divided. Its 120,000 members include 44,000 who also belong to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and leaders of the two unions are at each other's throats.

AFTRA, with 70,000 total members, negotiated a contract similar to ones writers and directors accepted this year. SAG is holding out for a better deal that many in Hollywood say it cannot realistically achieve in a business stung first by losses from the 100-day writers strike and now by studio stinginess amid the weak economy.

"Militancy has its moments," said James Cromwell, a former SAG board member who is among members of both unions urging AFTRA to approve the deal. "Under the circumstances, with this town having just gone through a writers strike, militancy is useless," Cromwell said by phone from Shreveport, La., where he is co-starring as George H.W. Bush in Oliver Stone's "W." While the unions traditionally have negotiated side by side, they split this time, and SAG leaders are actively campaigning to defeat AFTRA's contract, whose results are due July 8.

SAG is pushing for more money on DVD residuals, a raise producers have refused to give other Hollywood unions. Leaders of SAG also say the AFTRA contract shortchanges actors on potential revenue from Internet programming. "When unions compete with different contract terms, actors lose. It starts a race to the bottom that SAG doesn't want to win," SAG chief negotiator Doug Allen said in a June 23 message asking actors who belong to both unions to vote against AFTRA's deal.

Along with Cromwell, actors such as Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Fairchild are among hundreds who have signed an agreement encouraging AFTRA members to approve the deal.

SAG, which accounts for about 90 percent of TV production and all of the film industry, insists it can strike a better bargain. But if the AFTRA deal goes through by a wide margin, it could undermine SAG's leaders, who might not be able to drum up the votes should they decide to ask members to authorize a strike.

"The worst thing you can do is to try to get it and fail," AFTRA President Roberta Reardon said. "It's hard to imagine a performer voting yes for one contract then voting to put himself out on the street for the other one." Alexandra Leighton, a 28-year-old actress who appears in two episodes of the new CBS drama "Swingtown," said she is voting for the AFTRA deal and would oppose a SAG strike.

Leighton backs SAG's demand for tougher consent rules over use of an actor's image in online clips, but she said it was not worth losing her job - her first acting gig outside of commercials. "Too many people would be put out of work," Leighton said. "It's just not worth it. The economy is already iffy, and it would just crush the local economy."

It also could ruin some TV series. Audiences did without new episodes on many shows for months while writers were on strike. If actors walk and new episodes vanish again, fans could lose interest for good.

When writers returned in February, the feeling in Hollywood was that cooler heads among actors and producers would avert another strike. Optimism gradually eroded as the two actors unions began beating up on each other.

While SAG has struck deals to allow work to continue with many independent producers, studio production that accounts for most of Hollywood employment has been hurled into limbo.

Associated Press Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Cinematographers guild blasts SAG
ICG's Poster criticizes org in letter to members
by DAVE MCNARY

With the Screen Actors Guild's contract talks showing negligible progress, the Intl. Cinematographers Guild has blasted SAG's leadership.

ICG president Stephen Poster, in a letter to his members sent Friday, (next article below) said SAG should have made a deal by now and criticized the guild for attacking AFTRA's primetime pact. SAG had no immediate response.

"SAG has not brought anything new or promising to the bargaining table and a factional riff within SAG's membership is threatening to not only damage the union itself, but the industry as a whole," he said. Poster denounced the guild leadership as "dysfunctional" in describing what he termed "the sad state" of SAG's negotiations.

Poster's missive came with SAG and the majors in their 39th days of talks with the guild's feature-primetime contract set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. SAG's urging its 44,000 members who also belong to AFTRA to vote down the latter's primetime deal, asserting the pact lacks advances in DVD residuals, doesn't protect actors on force majeure and product integrations and falls short in gains in new media and salaries.

Most feature and TV production's expected to stop next week although SAG hasn't yet asked its members for a strike authorization, which would require 75% approval. Poster noted that another work stoppage would have a profound impact on showbiz following the 100-day writers strike, which ended Feb. 12.

"All of us are worried about another industry strike, which would not only destroy any chance of reviving this year's scripted television season, but also would deal a serious blow to our health and pension plans, neither of which has recovered from the WGA strike," he noted.

Poster pointed out that a bargaining pattern has already been established by the DGA, WGA and AFTRA in contract agreements reached earlier this year with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

But SAG's asserted it's not going to follow the pattern set by other unions and it's blasted the AMPTP for stalling by not yet offering SAG a deal with terms equivalent to AFTRA's pact. For its part, the AMPTP's accused SAG of stalling in order to campaign against the AFTRA ratification vote, with those results expected to be announced July 8.

Poster said AFTRA's deal has "major" gains in new media and salaries and has drawn support from Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey and Sally Field. SAG's generated support for its anti-AFTRA stance from Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen and Jack Nicholson; George Clooney issued a call Thursday for a truce between SAG and AFTRA.

"This movie has to end soon," Poster added. "The paltry gains for which SAG continues to fight do not justify the pain a strike or continued slowdown will bring to those who work in this industry, who fight to pay their mortgages, feed their families and keep their health coverage intact."

The ICG has about 6,000 members, covering camera crews and publicists. It operates as Local 600 of the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and is one of IATSE's largest and most influential locals.

"I am hopeful that SAG will stop attacking AFTRA's agreement and instead realize the gains that the DGA, WGA and AFTRA have made," Poster said. "Maybe then, we will have network programming that offers more depth than reality shows. Maybe then, we will have industry peace and not an industry in pieces."

International Cinematographers Guild
An Open Letter to Members on SAG Negotiations

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Since the election, one of the most important goals of my administration is to unite the Guild's leadership around attainable goals that promote the interests of all members. At last weekend's National Executive Board Meeting, your elected leadership worked together for two days on issues such as improving our training programs, examining the trends that are changing the digital workflows and searching for ways to empower members through building better communication channels and a new computer system.

I will report on the Board's productive meeting in more depth in an upcoming issue of "Camera Angles," but for now, I would like to discuss the sad state of Screen Actors Guild Negotiations.

All of us are worried about another industry strike, which would not only destroy any chance of reviving this year's scripted television season, but also would deal a serious blow to our health and pension plans, neither of which has recovered from the WGA strike.

SAG has not brought anything new or promising to the bargaining table and a factional riff within SAG's membership is threatening to not only damage the Union itself, but the industry as a whole. To date, three Entertainment industry unions have completed their negotiations with the AMPTP and a bargaining pattern has been established. These three unions are the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild and SAG's sister union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), who successfully negotiated two separate agreements.

AFTRA's contracts made major gains in new media and actors' salaries and has won the support of actors such as Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey and Norma Rae (Sally Fields). However, SAG's leadership is urging its dual card members to vote down AFTRA's most recently negotiated contract.

As columnist Brian Lowry wrote in Wednesday's Variety (next article below) , "Pity the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild. They've been preparing for their 'Norma Rae' moment, and by the time they got there, it seems that everybody including Norma Rae herself - is pleading to just end the movie."

This movie has to end soon. The paltry gains for which SAG continues to fight do not justify the pain a strike or continued slowdown will bring to those who work in this industry, who fight to pay their mortgages, feed their families and keep their health coverage intact

I've seen what factionalism has done to this Guild and the harm it brings to negotiations. As long as I am President of Local 600, we will denounce dysfunctional leadership that threatens your livelihood and advocate for peaceful and fair resolutions. I am hopeful that SAG will stop attacking AFTRA's agreement and instead realize the gains that the DGA, WGA and AFTRA have made. Maybe then, we will have network programming that offers more depth than reality shows. Maybe then, we will have industry peace and not an industry in pieces.

Fraternally,

Steven Poster
National President
International Cinematographers Guild
IATSE Local 600

SAG misses its 'Norma Rae' moment
No reason to believe studios will capitulate
by BRIAN LOWRY

PITY THE LEADERSHIP of the Screen Actors Guild. They've been preparing for their "Norma Rae" moment, and by the time they got there, it seems like everybody -- including Norma Rae herself -- is pleading to just end the movie.

After eight months of labor discord in Hollywood, people are plain worn out. And while nobody should applaud the studios for their behavior, there's no reason to believe they'll utterly capitulate now, meaning the incremental gains for which SAG continues fighting don't look worth the threat of bringing the town grinding to a halt from an actual strike or even a pronounced slowdown.

Like a youngest child, SAG has a hard time professing shock over how strict mom and dad are. The guild, after all, is fifth in line this cycle -- a point the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers stresses on its website, accentuating that its framework for new media has already been accepted during "four other separate negotiations this year," and that there is "no valid reason" to alter that just-molded template.

The ever-pragmatic Directors Guild -- aided by the Writers Guild's collective sacrifice -- recognized that management would bend only so far. So they leveraged the WGA strike to secure a taste of new media. At the time, DGA officials stressed -- accurately -- that the true value of new media remains nebulous and will have to be revisited in future negotiations.

STUDIOS OBVIOUSLY won't be motivated by conscience, remorse or questions of fairness. Yet if injected full of truth serum (which given the jolt to their systems would probably kill them), the moguls would say: "OK, we confess: In hindsight, we screwed you on DVDs. But that was then, and this is now. This isn't the same world as when we made those deals, and we need to keep options open to avoid ending up like the newspaper or music industries, which scares the hell out of us.

"We do paint a rosier picture when talking to Wall Street, but read between the lines. We're like politicians, with a separate spiel for each constituency. As for the untold riches promised by original Internet production, as the DGA concluded after months of research, that's at best years away.

"Many of you are hurting from lost residuals due to fewer network repeats, but that hurts us, too. Because the audience won't sit still for reruns anymore, we have to spend more producing programming year round.

"Oh, and you know all your concerns about 'artists rights,' creative integrity and control over use of your image? We don't pretend to understand them. When we talk, it's about money. That's why you're actors, and we're not."

OF COURSE, the studios could stop haggling over pennies, but that's sort of like telling an insurance company to quit low-balling you. That's just what they do -- relying on any sane person to give up first.

All these factors merit consideration as the guilds look ahead. While each discipline has its own unique priorities, there certainly could have been greater coordination and consensus regarding feasible goals going in. Strategically speaking, the WGA might have possessed more leverage had it waited and walked out with the actors. Similarly, SAG and AFTRA's intramural Keystone Kops act hasn't helped either's cause, what with several prominent SAG members telling their guild that enough's enough. (Even Sally Field, who played Norma Rae, endorses the AFTRA agreement.)

Before the current round of labor negotiations began, I joked that the situation was mercurial because, historically, directors only care about themselves, writers are bitter and actors are nuts.

Frankly, most of what's transpired has done little to invalidate those views, but the analysis omitted another key consortium: The studio moguls, who have cried wolf so often in their past protestations of poverty, they've lost the ability to effectively communicate with talent. It's a rift they'd be wise to address once calm prevails, unless the studios yearn for an encore when these guild contracts expire in 2011.

Admittedly, achieving temporary labor peace won't redress earlier wrongs, but it will hopefully establish a threshold for what comes next -- and maybe help frame the frequent disparity between happy endings and realistic ones.

Pro-AFTRA effort grows
Tom Hanks sides with Alliance in SAG feud
by DAVE MCNARY

Raising the stakes in the SAG-AFTRA brawl, Tom Hanks has joined the pro-AFTRA forces in an endorsement of the smaller union's primetime deal.

Hanks has added his name to a list of more than 100 signatures as part of a campaign encouraging AFTRA's 70,000 members to vote yes on the pact over SAG's strident opposition. The pro-AFTRA letter blasts SAG's recent anti-AFTRA campaign and accuses SAG leadership of clinging to unrealistic contract demands that are "hold(ing) us all hostage."

Other signers include former SAG board members James Cromwell, Mike Farrell and Tess Harper and current board members Morgan Fairchild and Richard Masur, a former SAG president who has helped coordinate the signature-gathering effort.

Two weeks ago, Hanks and George Clooney denied an assertion by a SAG board member that they'd backed SAG's anti-AFTRA campaign.

"AFTRA has made a good deal," the letter said. "In fact, under the circumstances, it's a very good deal. As did the DGA, WGA and AFTRA net code deals, the AFTRA Exhibit A deal establishes important new principals and even improves on those deals."

SAG, which has 120,000 members, enters its 36th day of negotiations with the majors today with June 30 looming as the expiration date on its feature-primetime contract. Its leaders have harshly criticized the contract agreement reached May 28 by rival thesp union AFTRA as a cave-in to management because its lacks gains in key areas such as DVD, new media and force majeure protections. SAG's leadership has waged a vigorous campaign to persuade the 44,000 dual SAG-AFTRA cardholders to vote down the deal. SAG's hope is that such a move would force AFTRA to put aside its differences with SAG and negotiate jointly, as the two unions did for nearly 30 years until splitting this year.

Ballots in the AFTRA ratification vote are due back by July 8.

Despite the high-profile battling between the two unions, top thesps had stayed away from SAG and AFTRA politics until now. Hanks had joined Clooney, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep in February in urging SAG leaders to begin its contract negotiations as soon as possible so the biz could avoid enduring the uncertainty involved when talks go down to the wire as they are now.

SAG began its talks with the majors April 16 after AFTRA opted to end the tradition of the unions negotiating the feature-primetime pact together. The split was fueled by a bitter jurisdictional dispute between the two.

The pro-AFTRA letter signed by Hanks and others blasts SAG leaders for forcing the industry to shut down and for asserting that voting down the AFTRA deal will force AFTRA to join SAG at the bargaining table to negotiate better terms with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

"AFTRA will almost certainly step back and let SAG attempt to make a deal without them," the letter said. "AFTRA will not go back to the table with SAG, no matter what the SAG leadership is saying -- you just can't spend years openly vilifying another organization, destroying their work, and still expect them to come back and work cooperatively. AFTRA will let SAG go in with its list of demands (that none of the other unions got) and hold us all hostage."

The pro-AFTRA forces have received support from SAG leaders outside Hollywood. Eight former SAG New York presidents -- Joyce Gordon, Bob Kaliban, Larry Keith, Maureen Donnelly, Paul Hecht, Mel Boudrot, Eileen Henry and Paul Christie -- announced Sunday that they had endorsed the AFTRA deal.

SAG has not yet scheduled a strike authorization vote, which would take three weeks to complete and require 75% approval from those voting. Hollywood production is expected to largely stop next week, except for indie features that have SAG waivers and a few TV pilots (Daily Variety, June 17).

In Los Angeles, despite the approach of the expiration, offlot production of features is down a smallish 5% for the last four weeks to 79 permits, while TV activity has soared due partly to the lingering impact of the WGA strike, according to the FilmL.A. permit coordinating agency.

"TV dramas are up 211%, likely attributable to a shifting/shortened summer hiatus," agency spokesman Todd Lindgren told Daily Variety. "Pilots are up significantly for the same reason -- the 'traditional' pilot season (typically strong in the first four months of the year) didn't exist this year, and pilot production has been spread into later months. Reality TV has seen a gain as well."

Lindgren said he was surprised that local feature activity had remained as strong as it had with the June 30 deadline approaching. During the June 11-18 period, features in production in Los Angeles included Fox Searchlight's "500 Days of Summer," DreamWorks' "A Thousand Words" and "I Love You, Man," Columbia's "The Ugly Truth" and "Maxim's Fired Up," Lionsgate's "Crank 2: High Voltage," Starz's "Table for Three," Millennium's "Labor Pains" and Warner's "The Informant: A True Story."

"Labor Pains," starring Lindsay Lohan, has a SAG waiver.

In the meantime, SAG and the majors recessed negotiations on Friday and took the weekend off. Each side has blamed the other for the lack of progress, with SAG asserting that the congloms were not moving off any of their positions to match the guild's concessions and the AMPTP accusing SAG of stalling in order to fight the AFTRA ratification.

The majors are expected to make SAG a last, best and final offer as early as this week (Daily Variety, June 20) unless the guild backs away from an array of demands that are nonstarters for the majors. Meanwhile, the congloms suspect that SAG won't negotiate seriously until AFTRA results have been announced.

AFTRA shows covered by the deal include "Rules of Engagement," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Flight of the Conchords," "Dante's Cove," " 'Til Death" and "Reaper," the new CBS programs "Project Gary" and "Harper's Island" and the ABC comedy pilot "Roman's Empire." The current AFTRA contract also expires June 30.

In an email sent to AFTRA members Friday, national exec director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth issued a spirited defense of the AFTRA deal while blasting SAG on a number of fronts.

Hedgpeth described SAG's anti-ratification efforts as "a disgrace to any observer who believes in the integrity and importance of the labor movement and your rights as union members. The myth has been spread that if you turn down your contract, it does not mean a strike... The notion that one can reject a hard-fought contract, which exceeds industry 'pattern,' without backing it up with the courage of your convictions is absurd."

That brought a sharp rebuke from SAG's national exec director Doug Allen.

"It is not only appropriate but necessary that we educate our members about how this contract affects them," Allen said in a statement. "It would be irresponsible if we did not. The actors involved are our members, working for the same employers, in shows on the same networks."

BACKSTAGE/STRIKE WATCH BLOG
SAG Faction, Including Hanks, Endorses AFTRA Contract
By ANDREW SALOMON

WA group of dual-cardholders, including Tom Hanks and members of SAG's New York board, has sent an email calling for ratification of AFTRA's tentative three-year network prime-time TV contract. (To read the letter and who has signed it, click on the link at the end of this post.)

The principal theme of the letter is merger of the two unions, and the email address listed at the top is

"SAG members were warned in 1998 and 2003 that if we didn't merge there would be a jurisdictional war between SAG and AFTRA. But the anti-merger leadersâ ¬ the same individuals in charge right nowâ ¬ insisted that the unions would simply keep negotiating cooperatively under the Phase One agreement as they had always done. Having prevented the merger, this SAG leadership then spent last year attacking AFTRA and trying to force radical changes in the Phase One agreement, leading inevitably to where we are now."

Hanks' endorsement of the AFTRA deal is notable because, earlier this month, Susan Savage had circulated an email that intimated he and George Clooney had supported SAG's efforts to defeat the AFTRA contract. Within 24 hours after Savage's missive, Hanks and Clooney denied through their press representatives they had supported those efforts.

SAG leadership's reasons for voting against AFTRA's contract include what it considers to be insufficient protections and residuals for work in new media, as well as inadequate pay raises.

Merger was a complicated process beset by problems in integrating the unions' funds that support members' pension and health plans. There were also acute differences revolving around members' identities. Those actors opposing merger did not want to be lumped in with a group that included newscasters and variety-show dancers. These different professions and crafts, the anti-merger forces added, have discrete wants and needs, and one large union cannot serve them adequately. Those in favor of merger have argued that, in the age of media consolidation, unions must form their own conglomeration to maximize their power at the negotiating table.

The latter argument has seemed to make more sense to me than the former. Doesn't it only benefit the producers to have the two negotiating separately? (As most who have followed the situation for some time now know, AFTRA suspended Phase One this year, not SAG. But AFTRA has, historically, favored consolidation.) And, isn't there a compromise to be had here? SAG's leadership, particularly the Membership First faction that controls the Hollywood and the national boards, has argued for proportional voting: The negotiating committee for each contract--such as TV, film, commercials, interactive video--should be composed of performers who actually work those contracts. Isn't merger the best way to ensure that happens?

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