Industry News :: SAG-AFTRA Rift Widens

06/19/08 By Lauren Horwitch, backstage.com

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Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg and his trusted lieutenant, National Executive Director Doug Allen, sounded the "Vote no!" battle cry loud and clear at the guild's June 9 rally against the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists' tentative deal with producers. Enthusiasm was high at the event, but the SAG leaders have since been criticized by actors, AFTRA, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and other experts for launching an aggressive, public campaign asking the 44,000 dual SAG-AFTRA members to reject the contract in the midst of negotiating with the AMPTP.

Two sources with decades of experience in labor law told Back Stage that SAG's campaign is unprecedented and divisive and has little chance of success. "I have never heard of one union trying to submarine another -- particularly one that is supposed to be a sister union.... In my personal opinion, I think it's very inappropriate," said Alan Brunswick, employment and labor partner of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and former vice president and in-house counsel for the AMPTP. "It's as if they're trying to distract everyone from what they are unable to do on their own. I think that's why they're not taking a strike vote, because, at least at this point, they're probably not able to get the 75 percent they need."

Howard Fabrick, a labor and entertainment attorney with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who has participated in two SAG-AFTRA contract negotiations, said he has not seen a comparable campaign in 46 years of working in the labor-relations field. "I've seen situations where one union was kind of unhappy with the deal that the other union made, thinking that it's going to set some kind of precedent in negotiations. But notwithstanding that, I've never seen them go out and undermine the deal," he commented.

Allen responded that SAG's campaign stems from the sister unions' unusual situation. "What's unprecedented is the relationship between two unions who represent the same employers, the same productions, the same actors. They are the same contracts; they are the same issues," he said.

SAG leaders have been expressing more strong opinions about AFTRA's contract in frequent statements since the June 9 rally. Some "problems with AFTRA's tentative deal" listed in a memo distributed at SAG's June 11 town hall meeting include a new-media deal that would "allow our signatory AMPTP companies to produce nonunion" and failure to "make significant gains for middle-class actors," "protect actors on clip consent," "advance background performer proposals," and increase DVD residuals.

Naturally, AFTRA has responded with fact sheets and statements of its own. In a June 13 statement, the union countered that per its deal, new-media productions over set budgets ($15,000 per minute, $300,000 per program, or $500,000 per series, whichever is lowest) are required to be union. AFTRA also contended that the "some 'middle class' actors will see their pay jump by almost 400 percent" due to pay and overtime increases in the contract, which also "increases the number of covered background actors in Los Angeles and secures rest provisions for them." The union pointed out that its agreement "got the AMPTP to agree to language regarding [clip consent] that SAG negotiators tried and failed to achieve"; as for DVD increases, AFTRA stated, "Clinging to proposals about DVDs is misguided and unrealistic given the business realities and the studios' unwavering position."

That isn't enough for Allen, who took AFTRA to task for conceding to the same new-media deal that has been accepted by the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America and in AFTRA's Network Code. "What AFTRA did was take the DGA proposal essentially without change," Allen told Back Stage. "What they did in new media is precisely what the DGA ended up with and not at all what AFTRA and SAG proposed initially or where SAG is in our proposal today."

Allen said SAG can certainly garner a better deal with the AMPTP. "I'm not sure why the 120,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild because they're at the end of the line don't get to negotiate," he said. "If what that means is that the AMPTP is not negotiating and they're simply saying, 'Take it or leave it,' that would be inappropriate as well as a violation of our rights under labor law."

Fabrick and other labor experts such as UCLA law professor Kenneth Ziffren suggest SAG take the existing deal. "The most sophisticated union in terms of understanding economics of the business is the Directors Guild of America," said Fabrick. "They are tough.... They spent two years studying the economics of the business -- independently commissioned and spent a bloody fortune...doing their own independent evaluation." He continued, "I think that the directors recognized, 'Let's not kill the goose that laid the golden egg. There ain't no residuals if there's no employment.' "

Dissent, Unity

SAG's controversial campaign has reawakened traditional East Coast-West Coast rivalries among guild board members. The New York-based and regional members of SAG's negotiating committee boycotted the June 9 rally. Two days later, SAG and AFTRA members in Chicago sent an advisory motion asking Rosenberg and other guild officials to withdraw the campaign. Todd Hissong, president of SAG's Chicago branch, called the campaign "an unconscionable waste of our resources and our time. And Chicago's rank and file does not support it."

Allen is not concerned about the New York and Chicago members' dissent. He insisted the guild's unified negotiating committee -- composed of Hollywood, New York, and regional board members -- reflects the solidarity of the majority of SAG's rank-and-file members. (The identities of the negotiating committee members are confidential, according to SAG.) Allen referred to the committee's "unity statement" sent June 13, which read, "We are united and committed to working together in achieving the best possible contract for the benefit of all actors. We pledge to stand together, united, not allowing ourselves to be distracted from our crucial and singular mission by anyone. No matter what the distraction or from where it may come, this committee will continue to stand firm to achieve the best contract possible."

Allen declined to comment on record about whether SAG will seek strike authorization from its members, or what the union intends to do if the contract expires without a new deal in place. The expiration date is June 30.