Pact Would Cut Pay of TV, Movie Extras

Hollywood extras would take a substantial pay cut, but be given more work and receive pension and health benefits under a new three-year contract tentatively agreed on by actors and producers this weekend.

While a news blackout on the contract remained in effect Monday, sources familiar with the pact told The Times that union extras on the West Coast would see their salaries slashed from $86 to $65 a day if the agreement is ratified. East Coast extras would continue to earn $90 a day under a separate existing contract.

The pay cut appears to have been a key trade-off that management negotiators demanded in return for allowing the Screen Actors Guild to become the bargaining agent for members of the Screen Extras Guild, whose contract with the producers expired in 1990 and never was renewed.

The issue of bringing extras into SAG had been a serious hitch in the talks and prompted studio executives to threaten to delay some productions if an agreement could not be reached quickly. Producers claimed that paying extras the same salaries as SAG extras on the East Coast would add $34 million a year to the cost of local productions, a figure the union disputed.

In exchange for the pay cut, producers agreed to boost the number of union extras on prime-time television shows from 10 to 15 and increase the number in feature films from 10 to 30, sources said.

Under the SAG contract, extras also would be given a wide array of health benefits and a pension plan, something that they have not had since their SEG contract expired two years ago.

But the accord is expected to bring an angry outcry from many extras who thought that winning SAG representation would mean more pay, not less.

“They’re going to be crazed,” said one source close to the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The agreement was reached Sunday after a 27-hour bargaining session between SAG and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists on one side and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on the other. The Alliance is the bargaining agent for the major studios and independent producers of movies and TV programs.

Union negotiators will present the proposed contract to joint meetings of their boards next week in Hollywood and New York and, if approved, the unions’ 120,000 combined members will vote to ratify it sometime before the current contract expires June 30.

“The only people against it will be union extras but they will not have enough votes or manpower to do anything about it,” the source told The Times. In Los Angeles, there are about 4,000 union extras.

The two unions must still negotiate with ABC, CBS and NBC. The networks have asked for significant cuts in residuals paid to actors whose TV shows are rerun in prime time.