Producers, Actors Unions Settle on Terms of Contract

In a surprise move, unions representing Hollywood’s 102,000 television and motion picture performers and the coalition representing more than 270 production companies came to terms on a new contract Friday, three months before the old contract was set to expire.

The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists settled with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers after only three days of discussion. Both sides said they were eager to avoid the prolonged negotiations that characterized last year’s five-month walkout by members of the Writers Guild.

Neither the unions nor the producers alliance wanted to refer to the talks this week as “bargaining.”

‘Not a Negotiation’

“We made it quite clear that it was not a negotiation,” said Ken Orsatti, chief negotiator for SAG. “We actually gave them a package of proposals that were a trade-off with management (needs).”

Though neither side would detail the contract contents, the guild reported last week that its package gave breaks to producers on a more flexible workweek and residuals for syndicated hourlong dramatic TV programs. In exchange, actors were to receive higher minimum wages, better pension and health benefits, guest star fees and residuals for basic cable and foreign TV syndication.

Orsatti said Friday that there are “no surprises” in the tentative 10-page contract. It essentially covers the same residual, pay and workweek issues reported last week.

‘Better Way of Doing Business’

Nicholas Counter III, president of the producers’ alliance, called the tentative three-year agreement the quickest contract settlement in his 23 years as a management representative in Hollywood labor negotiations.

“I think the lesson learned from 1988 is that there is a better way of doing business than having five-month strikes,” said Counter, referring to last year’s Writers Guild of America strike. The walkout, which lasted from March to August, temporarily crippled the entertainment industry and delayed the fall television season by two months.

“Our pension fund figures indicate that it took until December for television to finally get back to full production,” Orsatti said.

Orsatti said the proposed contract will go to the joint West Coast board of SAG and AFTRA for approval Monday. After the East Coast board of the two unions meets and votes on the contract Wednesday in New York, the ballots will be mailed to the membership “probably on the 27th or 28th of March,” Orsatti said. He said he expected to have the results of the voting by mid-April.

The current SAG-AFTRA pact expires June 30.

The 70,000-member SAG primarily represents feature film actors and the 68,000-member AFTRA represents television and radio performers. Some members belong to both unions, bringing the total number of performers affected to 102,000.

In its 56-year history, SAG’s theatrical and television division has only struck twice, according to Orsatti. The first time was in 1960 over the issue of releasing motion pictures for airing on television. The second strike, in 1980, lasted 13 weeks and revolved around a formula for determining actors residuals in made-for-pay-television programming, Orsatti said.

The Writers Guild struck March 7, 1988, over issues ranging from residuals for syndicated hourlong TV dramas and foreign TV sales to creative rights. By the time the walkout ended 154 days later on Aug. 8, several thousand non-WGA workers had lost their jobs, the movie industry had lost millions in unproduced film projects and TV networks had little new material to offer viewers.

“I think the impact of that strike certainly weighed very heavily in our attempt to find a new way to resolve our differences without a confrontation,” Orsatti said.

Instead of waiting until the contract expired and parceling out each issue at the bargaining table, Orsatti explained, the two unions decided two months ago to put all the issues together into a package that would generally satisfy both sides.

Asked if he thought that SAG-AFTRA acquiesced to producers out of fear of another prolonged strike, Counter said:

“We would hope that this will be a harbinger of the way to do business in the future in the labor scene in Hollywood. My perception is that they recognized that the industry at this point in our history is better served by a peaceful resolution of issues than by confrontations.”