Pickets Halt Filming of Miniseries in Santa Ana

Hours after its picket lines halted filming of a TV miniseries at the Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana, the Screen Extras Guild resumed negotiations Tuesday with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The guild went on strike last Wednesday for the first time in its 41-year history. Members are protesting decisions by the producers alliance to cut their wages by 25% to 40%, a move the producers say is necessary to meet competition from non-union film companies that pay extras considerably less. The resumption of negotiations came at the behest of a federal mediator.

So far the extras guild has not picketed at any of the studios directly affected by the strike. Those include Columbia, Disney, Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and Aaron Spelling Productions.

On Tuesday, though, members did picket in Santa Ana, where Phoenix Productions, a non-union film company, is shooting “Roses for the Rich,” a four-hour miniseries for CBS starring Lisa Hartmann about a woman’s struggle to emerge from a poor background. Tom Willett, a spokesman for the guild, said the union had shut down production.

Jerry Abrams, co-chairman for Phoenix, said there had been picketing. “But we’re continuing to work,” he added.

In an attempt to increase its bargaining power, the extras guild, traditionally Hollywood’s weakest union, merged with the Teamsters Union, one of the nation’s most powerful labor organizations. The Teamsters Union represents about 3,000 drivers who work for Hollywood studios, and if those drivers honored picket lines set up by the extras guild, it could cause considerable disruption for the studios.

Willett said the extras would be doing more and more picketing of non-union companies in an attempt to sign them up, get their wage rates elevated and thus decrease the pressure from unionized companies to lower their wages to meet the non-union competition.

Until Dec. 28, unionized extras were paid $91 a day. That day, the producers lowered their wages to $68 for a full day and $54 for a six-hour day. Non-union companies typically pay extras $35 a day.