Screen Actors Guild has tight deadline for contract
When leaders of the Screen Actors Guild cue up their contract negotiations April 15, they will have a short time to perform.
The major Hollywood studios have in effect imposed a two-week deadline on SAG to hammer out a contract, replacing one that expires June 30.
That puts enormous pressure on SAG leaders to secure a deal before studios enter into talks with the smaller actors’ union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which said Wednesday that it would begin negotiating April 28. Over the weekend AFTRA ditched its long-standing joint bargaining agreement with SAG, accusing the bigger union of an ongoing push to diminish its power.
With AFTRA in the wings, SAG will have to quickly work through its issues with the studios. But that won’t be easy. The union’s leaders have vowed to fight for an increase in what actors can earn in residuals from DVDs, despite warnings from studio executives that the issue is not open for negotiation.
Whether the demand could trigger another Hollywood strike or is a bargaining chip to wring concessions in other areas remains unclear. Actors also will press for better pay than what writers and directors received for shows distributed online.
AFTRA leaders, however, have spoken favorably of the previous contracts reached by the directors and writers unions, paving the way for what is expected to be smoother negotiations.
SAG President Alan Rosenberg and Chief Negotiator Doug Allen have stressed that actors have distinct needs and won’t embrace the writers and directors pacts as blueprints for their own contract. They will, however, follow the lead of the other unions by sitting down with the same two studio executives who led the previous negotiations, News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Walt Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger.
In recent discussions, the studio executives told SAG officials that they didn’t plan to sweeten the pot much for actors, and they specifically ruled out any hike in DVD residuals. That stance prompted writers to drop their original demand for a boost in DVD compensation and to focus instead on new-media pay.
But SAG leaders say they aren’t prepared to make a similar trade-off.
“The money in new media will be negligible in the next two or three years,” Rosenberg said. “DVDs are still the biggest source of income for studios, and we’ve never improved upon the pathetically low residuals formula.”
Actors complain that they receive only about 14 cents from the sale of every DVD under a formula adopted in 1985, during the early days of the older home videotape format.
The studios contend that DVD revenues have been declining and that they need them to help offset rising marketing and distribution costs.
The Hollywood studios received $14.4 billion in revenues from home video sales and rentals in 2007, down 2% from 2006. Revenues are projected to drop an additional 3% this year, according to Adams Media Research of Carmel.
SAG leaders were also openly critical of the terms that writers and directors won in the digital arena. The deals, they said, exclude low-budget programs created for the Internet, give studios too lengthy a window in which to stream TV shows before paying residuals and don’t compensate enough for shows sold online.
The guild also wants to improve the current residuals spread between actors and the other unions. Historically, actors have received three times the portion writers and directors receive because more of them are employed on a typical movie or TV show.
In addition, actors want to be consulted and receive extra pay when they are required to pitch products on television shows and films for major advertisers.
“Just because we got here last doesn’t mean we don’t have issues that are different for actors and that need to be addressed,” Allen said.
