2 Actors’ Unions OK 3-Year Pay Pact

Two major performers unions announced Friday that their members have ratified by an overwhelming majority a new three-year contract covering the filming of feature movies and prime-time television series.

Just under 87% of the members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists who cast ballots voted to ratify the new pact, according to Mark Locher, a SAG spokesman. About 31% of the two unions’ 92,000 members returned mail ballots.

The new contract, which was hammered out in early August between the two unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, provides for a 10% increase in minimum wages spread over three years.

“We are very pleased to have this contract resolved,” said Ken Orsatti, SAG’s executive director, in a prepared statement. “These negotiations were the toughest we’ve ever been through.”

Attempts by the producers to change the complicated formulas used to determine the size of residuals, the extra pay performers receive for reruns of filmed or taped material, were a key issue in the negotiations. Compromises were struck on these issues and both sides said they were satisfied, although some members of the unions voiced unhappiness with the outcome.