No Walkout Seen as Actors, Producers Hold Pact Talks

Representatives for producers and two actors’ unions said Tuesday that they expected no work stoppage, as negotiations continued on a new nationwide contract governing most major movie and television show production.

Issues dividing the two sides include actors’ wages and payments for movies shown on videocassettes and pay TV. Representatives of both actors and producers, however, appeared ready to continue their talks until agreeing on a new three-year contract.

Producers’ representatives and negotiators for the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which together represent 90,000 actors nationwide, have been meeting since May 27 at the Sherman Oaks offices of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers

Talks continued until after midnight Monday, when the existing production contract was set to expire. However, both sides agreed to extend the contract and a union telephone hot line instructed actors Tuesday to continue showing up for work “until you are otherwise notified.”

Neither side would speculate on when negotiations are likely to conclude.

Mark Locher, a spokesman for the actors’ guild, said “work will proceed normally” until members approve a new contract.

“We agreed (Monday night) to extend the contract for 24 hours,” Locher said, “and at this point, it’s likely we’ll just continue extending on a day-to-day basis. There’s not going to be any abrupt work stoppage at this point.”

In 1980, actors walked off the job for 10 weeks, delaying the start of the fall network TV season. Producers estimated losses of $40 million a week during the strike.

Actors eventually won a 4.5% share of the revenues of programs made for pay TV and home video. There has been no indication that the current talks involve restructuring the six-year old agreement.

Chief negotiators in the current talks are actors’ guild president Patty Duke; Frank Maxwell, president of the federation, and Nicholas Counter, representing the producers.

The federation and guild, which have proposed a merger, are seeking a 25% increase in minimum wages for all actors (members currently are paid a minimum of $361 a day) and a new minimum scale for guest stars of $1,354 per day.

Producers have not yet responded to the wage demands, but are asking for a rollback in the residual payment formula that determines how much actors get paid for movies shown on videocassettes and pay TV.

Movie producers claim that the new video technologies no longer are sources of supplemental, or “residual,” income and should be covered by wages paid for the original production.