is it stupid for SAG to strike now?

from kansas city star

Screen Actors Guild divided over whether to strike
By AARON BARNHART
The Kansas City Star

Is SAG really going to shut down Hollywood and take every network show off the air for the second time in two years?

It just might.

The 120,000-member Screen Actors Guild is spoiling for a fight with the major studios over the same issues that drove the Writers Guild of America out on the picket lines 13 months ago.

But this time the esprit de corps among the Hollywood unions is gone, replaced by new jitters over the cratering economy and the knowledge that if there’s one thing the public hates, it’s a rerun.

On Jan. 2 the union will mail out strike authorization ballots to its rank and file. If 75 percent or more of voters say yes, the SAG leadership will be emboldened and, according to one labor lawyer and veteran Hollywood strike watcher, SAG will almost certainly take to the streets, throwing the rest of the 2008-2009 television season into doubt and wreaking havoc with movies slated for next fall and beyond.

“There’s a very real possibility of a (SAG) strike,” said Jonathan Handel of TroyGould in Los Angeles, who practices digital media, entertainment and technology law.

And for what? Basically, the actors would be striking for deal points that are even sweeter than the ones negotiated earlier this year by the writers and directors’ unions after the writers’ crippling 14-week strike. Those terms included, for the very first time, payments for new media such as Internet TV shows.

Handel can give you a pile of reasons why the actors, unlike the writers, shouldn’t even think of striking: The two other Hollywood unions extracted hard-won concessions out of the big studios earlier this year. The effects of the writers’ strike are still being felt, so another work stoppage will not benefit from the kind of pent-up, solidarity-fueled enthusiasm as the last walkout.

All of this reduces SAG’s bargaining power, said Handel, who has been in the thick of earlier writers’ strikes and was highly supportive of their 2007 strike authorization vote.

It seems SAG has forgotten the way labor politics are played in that industry town, which — as another observer, Mark Evanier, has quipped — is that the studios always try to use one union as a club to beat down the others. In the last strike, for instance, the directors struck a deal quickly with the studios containing many of the terms the writers had been asking for. That put pressure on the writers guild to sit down at the table.

And now?

“Not surprisingly, management is not willing to punish the other unions for being willing to negotiate,” Handel said.

In other words, the studios are using the directors and writers guilds to beat back SAG.

But it may not work. SAG is an interesting, some might say dysfunctional, union. It has a huge membership, and the vast majority of members don’t work enough in one year to qualify for these benefits. It’s a group whose New York and Los Angeles leadership disagree sharply about the next steps to take.

Though SAG leadership was earlier given near-unanimous authorization to continue its hard line with the studios, dissenting voices have begun making themselves heard. The reluctance to strike is being expressed more vocally than it ever was during the writers’ strike (when John Ridley became practically a one-man opposition on NPR).

In fact, there are now dueling pro-strike and anti-strike Web sites. More than 1,000 of its members have signed a “No to SAG Strike” petition posted online, to counter the more than 2,300 names signed to the pro-strike petition. Stargazers are counting up the numbers of A-listers who’ve thrown in with the “yes” camp (Sandra Oh, Mel Gibson, Eric Bogosian) and “no” camp (George Clooney, Jason Alexander, Jennifer Garner).

Such posturing, Handel warns, obscures the significant fact that almost no A-lister relies on SAG contract language when doing a deal to star in a movie or TV show — those terms are worked out separately.

“These are middle-class aspirations,” Handel said in a conference call Thursday. “The A-listers don’t care about them.”

SAG’s Web site has a series of videos featuring high-profile actors urging a strike authorization vote.

“New media is not something we can negotiate 10 years from now or five years from now or three years from now,” says Alicia Witt in one video.

Hal Holbrook’s video invokes “the working man, who has been treated very poorly lately by the corporations of this country, not to mention the administration, who are giving billions of dollars away to people who ride in limousines.”

In other words, the economic argument cuts both ways.

Holbrook isn’t the only actor who is urging a strike on principle. Tom Wilkinson, Blair Underwood and others have said they will strike because that’s what you do when leadership calls for one.

So what does SAG leadership want?

It wants a bigger cut of income from Internet and other new media than the concessions the writers and directors guilds were able to extract earlier this year. And it wants those payments to cover a wider range of new media productions.

Also, it would like actors to be compensated for “product integration,” like working that crime-solving Denali into “CSI” episodes, and for money that was withheld during the writers’ strike when the studios invoked the dreaded Force Majeure.

Handel, who has been in such negotiations before with Hollywood writers, thinks SAG can win on these other points if it drops the new-media demands. In three years, its deal will expire about the same time as the writers, allowing the two groups to negotiate together and be the club pounding on the studios for greater DVD and Internet residuals.

So how does he think the strike authorization vote will go?

“I have no idea,” he admitted.

He’s not the only one.

i'm voting yes

I get the demands over new media royalties, but the rest are stupid. Why should a writer get comped for product placement demanded by the production team?

Your product placement is unacceptable! I demand extra money to call the janitor "Leonard". My creative integrity is INSULTED by such a blatant reference to Star Trek, let me tell you! Give me another three points on gross or I will call him "Homer"!

Why do these assholes even have a union?

what kind of unfair and harsh working conditions have they ever had to endure?

This seems like a great time to bring in the Pinkertons, show them what a strike was really about. It's a disgrace to the people that fought and bled and died to win our labor rights, not for a bunch of spoiled ass pansy fucking writers and actors to bitch because they aren't getting another 7 or 8 figures in their income.

I am not informed enough to know whether they have any legit grievances, but in an economy where NBC just laid off 3% of their workforce and Viacom just laid off 7% of theirs, times are tough all over and it does not seem like a good time to get all squeaky wheel about wanting more $$$ in a particular position. Everybody could be doing better at the moment. If their grievances are legit, I think they should wait until the economy picks up.

What exactly are the SAG complaints?

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Originally Posted by Morning Glory

Why do these assholes even have a union?

what kind of unfair and harsh working conditions have they ever had to endure?

This seems like a great time to bring in the Pinkertons, show them what a strike was really about. It's a disgrace to the people that fought and bled and died to win our labor rights, not for a bunch of spoiled ass pansy fucking writers and actors to bitch because they aren't getting another 7 or 8 figures in their income.

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the SAG complaints are not about those with 7 or 8 figure incomes... few A list stars actually care about SAG... or use their contract...

the real problems all lie in the middle of the ground actors... that's what it is about...

I just don't see Hollywood in the same way that I see a town that loses it's entire workforce and livelihood because their factory closes down. Or what about all the people that work at walmart and make 5 bucks an hour and no healthcare, no benefits. those are the people that are really struggling in this country right now, and it seems like no one gives a shit about them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morning Glory

I just don't see Hollywood in the same way that I see a town that loses it's entire workforce and livelihood because their factory closes down. Or what about all the people that work at walmart and make 5 bucks an hour and no healthcare, no benefits. those are the people that are really struggling in this country right now, and it seems like no one gives a shit about them.

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No, that's inaccurate.

First off, the minimum wage in California is $8.00 per hour. It is expensive to live here, but actors kind of have to at least partially live here or in New York, which is more expensive. A lot of actors, when you factor in what they have to do to get work in terms of auditioning and suchlike, do not make minimum wage. Actually, most creative professions have so much unpaid stuff they have to do for the paid stuff that it becomes difficult to calculate what the real wage is, but it is often below minimum.

According to the Dept of Labor, the only places in the USA where one can apparently earn as little as $5 an hour (without being in a creative profession where it is easy to make less than minimum) appear to be Kansas, Montana, and various territories.

Secondly, although most Wal-Mart work is pretty much unskilled labor, around half their workers have health insurance and many of the remaining half are part-timers who qualify for SSI health benefits.

Almost EVERYBODY is really struggling right now. The fact that, as a nation, we are giving charity to bankers, at a time when so many are in such dire straits . . . well, it boggles the mind really.

With the SAG union, it's kind of weird. You always hear the success stories of those actors that went to auditions after they got off from a normal job. The waiter that gets discovered for a minor role. From what I understand, to even qualify to be in the SAG you have to have actually been in a couple movies. So, one movie and they're too good to have a normal person's job?

I grew up near Gary, IN. The city was built for employees of a steel mill and their families. In the last couple decades, those mills have been going out of business. What use to be Bethlaham Steel got bought out by US Steel after going almost bankrupt and now has less than half of those workers. I've seen unions at work fighting for their members who have legitimate claims, but actors?

I understood the writers. Did I agree? Not really, but I understood their point. They're the ones who don't get credit. Writers usually already have college degrees, so if they lose their jobs or can't support themselves, they could have a really hard time finding another job outside of studios. But why should everyone who enjoys the movie and television industry suffer because some lesser known actors aren't making enough but don't want to step out of the light for awhile and use acting as a secondary job?

I say let them strike. Maybe Hollywood will do something write and bring on scabs and have new shows. Fuck, it's acting, there's thousands of people in LA alone just waiting to be discovered. Maybe this could give us all a chance to see some fresh faces on the screen that are better than the actors that shell out crap and then the ones in the SAG could see what actually competing for a job is like.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

What exactly are the SAG complaints?

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I don't think even SAG can answer that anymore. If you're insanely bored and have a lawyer staying over for the Holidays, the AMPTP offer runs to 40+ pages, on everything from the danger money paid to dancers to the concept of "French lunch breaks".

Some of the split seems to be more over the idea of what SAG *is* rather than what it may or may not agree to sign up to. Folks I've spoken to tend to get one or two pertinent points and ignore the rest, but IMO SAG is trying to define things that are undefinable (like the control of 'future experimental new media'), and will crash and burn over technicalities just like the MPAA did over royalties on downloads. Because the SAG deal is being waved about as an all-encompassing mother of all contracts nobody will ever agree with every individual clause. I like French lunches, but I don't feel like signing up to a comp rate for holographic pay-per-view broadcasts of semi-nude blooper scenes only involving semi-retired background actors from Fresno.

I say let 'em strike. Perfect timing with the deep recession and all. I'm sure all their demands will be met. Hahaha!

A SAG strike basically means more reality series.

PLEASE DON'T STRIKE.

As much as it would suck, and as much as I dont want to go through another lull like the WGA strike caused, it NEEDS TO HAPPEN.

This is the era of digital distribution. Blu-Ray will be the last physical medium (mark my words) there will be only set-top devices with video streaming/downloading capability's. It's already quite wide spread now, with Xbox Live and Netflix going streaming.

The old deals just dont cut it anymore, there are many ways of screwing the developers via digital distribution and keeping the cash in the distributors pocket, rather than everyone getting their cut.

Take for example, the Office, the american TV series. The cast shot several small episodes to be played off the network's website over the summer during off season. Turns out the deal was made so the cast received NOTHING for their work. The network however still profited via sale of advertising for the online spot.

These terms need to be laid out. Its the way of the future, and its mostly already here. Honestly this should have been done a few years ago...