Striking Actors Protest Against Procter & Gamble
Turning up the heat on the fight for a new contract, dozens of striking actors descended on this city’s Procter & Gamble plant Tuesday to help launch a nationwide boycott of some of the company’s oldest and best-known products.
The action coincided with demonstrations in New York and at Procter & Gamble’s corporate headquarters in Cincinnati, where members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced a consumer boycott of Tide detergent, Crest toothpaste and Ivory soap.
The effort, which has won the backing of the 13.1-million-member AFL-CIO, is meant to draw attention to the five-month strike by commercial actors against the advertising industry over pay and other issues.
It is designed to force Procter & Gamble, the nation’s second-largest advertiser after General Motors and thus a major player in the negotiations, to exert pressure on other advertisers to hammer out a contract that commercial actors contend is necessary to maintain their livelihood.
“This is a shame campaign,” said Mary McDonald-Lewis, a member of the negotiating committee who joined about 75 of her fellow actors on the picket line outside the Oxnard paper-products plant.
“We are the voices and the faces that show America that Procter & Gamble products can be trusted,” she said. “If they can’t be trusted to treat us well, how can America trust their products?”
Representatives of both sides have agreed to meet again next week in New York in an effort to jump-start negotiations that broke down late last month.
Procter & Gamble spokeswoman Wendy Jacques said Tuesday that the advertising industry already has proposed a “fair and lucrative” contract and that her company is being unfairly singled out by the actors guilds.
“P&G; and the advertising industry want to get back to the bargaining table and hammer out a fair and equitable contract,” Jacques said. “Instead, P&G; is now being unfairly targeted for a boycott by the unions, even though it is one of thousands of advertisers and has just one vote on the contract, just like the other negotiating committee members.”
The call for a boycott is the latest chapter in what has become the longest strike in Hollywood history.
At the heart of the dispute is a disagreement over how much commercial actors--who hawk everything from soap to soft drinks--should be paid for ads appearing on cable television, and whether future labor contracts should include commercials made exclusively for the Internet.
Advertising representatives maintain that the industry has made significant compromises in an effort to end the strike and give actors a fair compensation package.
*
Jacques said the advertisers have offered a 7% pay increase over three years, a boost in line with previous contracts ratified by the actors’ guilds.
But union representatives say they believe they have been shortchanged as cable TV markets have exploded, and that the industry’s proposal still does not provide actors a living wage.
Furthermore, actors contend that Procter & Gamble is leading the push to block them from sharing in the high-potential future of cable TV and the Internet.
Actors in ads that run on cable now receive a maximum flat fee of $1,014. The unions have proposed a series of increases over a three-year period to a maximum of $2,460 for unlimited use of the ads. The industry has proposed increases topping out at a maximum of $1,850.
Protesters also noted that P&G; is among the corporations that have employed nonunion actors in new commercials since the strike started May 1.
“We feel Procter & Gamble is a major player in all this,” said Todd Amorde, chairman of the unions’ national strike committee. “We are here to drive home the message that unless we get a fair contract, we are going to step up this boycott and try to inflict some economic damage.”
That was the unions’ message Tuesday morning outside Procter & Gamble’s Oxnard plant, which produces Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels.
Banging bongo drums and thwacking tambourines, actors stationed themselves at gates along Rice Avenue, attempting to hand out informational leaflets to all who entered.
Supporters whizzing by in cars and trucks honked their horns. Strike captains, wearing headsets to coordinate activities, handed out pastries, bananas and bottled water to sustain the picketers.
*
One thing the strikers are counting on to boost their boycott effort is Hollywood star power.
In New York, actors and directors such as Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon attended Tuesday’s rally to support the strikers. In Oxnard, Bryan Cranston, who plays the father in the Fox TV hit “Malcolm in the Middle,” lent his support.
“You’re looking at 50 or 60 little Davids nipping at the heels of Goliath,” said Cranston, who has done plenty of commercials himself, including one last year for Honda.
“This strike is not about getting that second house in Malibu,” he said. “We are talking about bread-and-butter, working-class actors who are trying to feed their families and pay their mortgages.”
Ten-year-old Patrick McTavish of Camarillo knows little about grocery bills and mortgage payments.
But the young actor, who has several commercials under his belt, took a day off from Los Nogales School to take part in the demonstration.
He said he misses being in front of the camera. But he added that he completely supports the boycott, saying it is wrong for Procter & Gamble to hire nonunion actors.
“I like supporting the union,” said Patrick, toting a sign reading, “Commerce With A Conscience” in Spanish. “I just want to get back to working, because it’s a lot of fun.”
