Union vs. union battle continues
In the union vs. union tragicomedy that has played out in Hollywood, SAG’s major beef with the AFTRA contract has been that it does not deliver enough gains for middle-class thesps.
AFTRA and SAG are both playing a bit fast and loose with the facts in making the case, respectively, for and against the deal to AFTRA’s 70,000 members, 44,000 of which have dual membership in SAG.
No point appears to be too small to fight over, but the overriding issue is whether SAG has a chance of reaching a deal with the majors on new-media and other contentious issues that are markedly different from the deals already agreed to by the DGA, WGA and AFTRA, pending the latter’s ratification vote.
AFTRA’s pro-ratification ballot, due back by July 8, and SAG’s “vote no” campaign offer highly diverging and complex versions of what’s at stake for actors.
SAG leaders have raised eyebrows among biz insiders for what some view as its mischaracterization of the value of AFTRA’s contract, particularly the gains realized in a bread-and-butter area for middle-class TV thesps — minimums for major roles in series.
SAG has argued that actors could be making less over three years, adjusted for inflation, than they are today because AFTRA’s increase in minimums amounts to about 10% over three years.
“Provisions for major role performers were not improved nearly enough,” SAG has maintained in its communications to members. “The money breaks provide little improvement.”
AFTRA maintains it made strides in the major-role minimums, because it secured an immediate boost of 6% from the current contract, rising to 13% by the third year. It also got a boost in the so-called multiplier figure that, in the intricacies of how actor salaries are calculated, chips into an actor’s overall compensation for a role. The existing AFTRA multiplier (or the percentage by which the base minimum is increased) was 7.5% but rises to 10% in the new contract.
With a base minimum in the new contract of $4,323 per day (up from $4,080) for major-role players in a half-hour series, the increase in the multiplier means that actors will get an additional $432.30 per day, as opposed to $302.61 if the multiplier had not been increased.
SAG makes no mention of the increase in the multiplier but still hammers that part of the deal. SAG and AFTRA are also going at it on whether AFTRA secured sufficient gains in overtime coin for actors, while AFTRA notes that the new pact includes the first overtime gains of any sort since 1998.
As SAG begins its 38th day of negotiations with the majors today, the pro-AFTRA forces have added Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to their list of several hundred endorsers, led by Tom Hanks and Sally Field. SAG’s anti-deal campaign has been stressing that voting no does not mean AFTRA will go strike, even though the ballot says a no vote gives AFTRA leaders a strike authorization.
SAG announced Tuesday it had added high-profile supporters including Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Josh Brolin, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Viggo Mortensen, Nick Nolte and Martin Sheen. It’s also amped up its PR campaign via print ads.
“A no vote means no and that’s all its means,” SAG said in an ad placed in today’s edition of Daily Variety. “What about going back to the table? Is AFTRA saying they won’t go back and bargain a better deal if AFTRA members vote this deal down? The SAG national negotiating committee knows that a ‘no’ vote makes a strike less likely because it shows that all actors want a better deal.”
The SAG-AFTRA brawling also raises the key question of clout. SAG has blasted the notion of the AFTRA deal serving as a template, because AFTRA’s last primetime contract generated $40 million for members while SAG’s last three-year feature-primetime pact generated $4 billion over the same period. Observers say the argument makes little sense, because SAG has so many more members working in the primetime and film arena.
SAG’s also hammering AFTRA over its “abandonment” of new media residuals — without noting that the AFTRA terms mirror those of the DGA and WGA deals. It claims that doing so marks “the beginning of the end” of residuals while failing to mention that its allies at the WGA wound up settling for the same terms as those in the AFTRA pact.
SAG contends that such residuals are crucial at this point: “This is a huge problem for SAG members because the new media platform could cannibalize some existing residuals models for both motion pictures and television when product moves to the Internet.”
SAG has blasted AFTRA over the deal’s online clip-consent provisions, noting that part of the deal is contingent on the development of a process for securing consent.
“Without strong protections in place — AFTRA’s right of consent at the time of hire could easily become ‘Right to get fired at the time of hire,'” SAG complained.
AFTRA, on the other hand, argues that it achieved the consent provision “despite enormous opposition” from the majors. Even sympathetic industry insiders are skeptical whether AFTRA will be able to come to terms on the clip-consent, but AFTRA is putting a glass-half-full spin on that part of the pact.
“Whatever we come up with, it will still be completely up to the performer to grant or withhold consent,” AFTRA asserted.
AFTRA also issued another blast Tuesday at SAG in reaction to the ad campaign, noting that SAG’s own New York, Chicago, and San Francisco boards have supported the AFTRA deal. “Yet SAG’s Hollywood leadership continues down its dysfunctional path, spending its members’ dues in a misguided effort to attack another union and undermine a solid contract,” a spokeswoman said. “For our part, we remain focused on educating AFTRA members about the facts and the merits of their new agreement so they can make an informed decision. We are confident that they will see through this latest politically motivated effort and ultimately ratify the AFTRA contract and help keep our industry working,”
