Carl Icahn Now Wants ALL Of Lionsgate 
Action Comedy TV: Showrunner Matt Nix 
SAG National Board Approves Joint Bargaining … 
SAG prez Alan Rosenberg today sent out this email:
June 8, 2008
Dear Members,
Screen Actors Guild's negotiating committee continued its bargaining with the AMPTP this past week. We continue to negotiate for a new contract that will be fair for actors and we are not done yet as there are still a number of significant outstanding issues including:
* More than cost-of-living improvements for working actor compensation, with real improvements in money breaks and schedule breaks and a significant increase in the major role minimum.
* Make real improvements in background coverage and compensation.
* Guild coverage and residuals for all original new media programs. Our employers should not have the right to produce non-union new media programming under our contract. We continue to fight hard to preserve residuals for actors now and in the future.
* Product integration -- you should have the right of consent and to be compensated for scripted in-program product integrations in which an actor extols the virtues of a product or service.
* Improving DVD Residuals - we are holding on our proposal that management pay P&H contributions on top of the residuals instead of deducting it from your residuals payment. This would mean a 15% increase in DVD residual payments.
* An increase in mileage for the 1rst time in 30 years. A gallon of gas cost about 63 cents in 1978. It's almost $5 per gallon now - a cost jump of around 700%. I think we can all agree that it's time for an increase in mileage.These are examples of priorities for actors that were not achieved in the AFTRA deal.
I also want to bring you up to date on other recent actions. As you may know, your negotiating committee unanimously voted to ask AFTRA to delay the ratification of their tentative deal in order to allow Screen Actors Guild to successfully conclude its negotiations with the AMPTP. We believe that the tentative AFTRA deal and its pending ratification -- coming as it does within several days of SAG's June 30 contract deadline -- is a distraction that the employers are using to delay significant progress in our negotiations.
Delaying ratification of the AFTRA contract could benefit all actors. AFTRA members too would benefit by increased leverage in our negotiations and through any favored nations clauses SAG might be able to achieve that would provide improvements in the AFTRA deal.
Regrettably, AFTRA President Roberta Reardon and Executive director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth informed us by letter that AFTRA will not agree to a delay in their ratification schedule. I assure you, this is NOT about union politics. It is about using our combined leverage to achieve the best terms possible for actors -- in both unions.
We appreciate the attendance of observers from other unions who attended our negotiations throughout the week, as they have in the past.
Loading ...
“An increase in mileage.” Yeah right and ROTFLMAO. Only in America do they expect to be paid for their petrol/gas consumption. Or is this an exclusive perk to whiny-faced ‘ack-tors? Get off your lazy arses and walk then…
can’t SAG just keep the current contract until this recession lifts and then renegotiate?
AFTRA Primetime/Exhibit A Tentative Agreement:
1) Won the right to keep consent on performers’ excerpts/clips.
2) Won jurisdiction over internet.
3) Current SAG & AFTRA day scale raised 10% over life of contract.
4) Increase in number of covered background performers.
Not bad???…It’s damned good. You’ll notice the carping & nay-saying about this contract contain no specific details…just party politics. We can get that on Limbaugh.
91% of SAG/AFTRA members on AFTRA Board recommend a “YES” vote.
Vote “YES” on the AFTRA contract. (It applies to AFTRA shows only.) When SAG negotiates and the Board recommends a SAG contract, vote YES on the SAG contract.
I just read Alan Rosenberg’s letter (6/8)
My wife is a member of I.A.T.S.E.
The crews we actors work with have taken a terrible beating since I started out in the business.
It is my conviction that the men and women who work behind the camera need leaders like Alan Rosenberg and Patric Verrone to stand up and fight for them.
Strong labor leaders can always expect to be villified in the corporate mediums. The more they’re demonized, the more likely it is that they’re doing their job.
On the other hand . . . Maybe Roberta Reardon of AFTRA deserves the genuflections of her profiler in the L.A. Times.
But the deal she put together with the ruling elite of the AMPTP Will NOT Get MY Vote.
Send them back to the table.
Dave Clennon
I think any SAG member, and especially any dual members, should strongly support a wait to ratify the AFTRA contract. I think any sensible AFTRA member should feel the same way. Best case scenario, they wait a few weeks before they vote and potentially get a better deal. Worst case, they wait a few weeks and end up with what they’ve already got. And it should be obvious to everyone that waiting gives SAG a better bargaining position when AFTRA implicitly says that theirs wasn’t good enough.
By not waiting, one has to wonder what the AMPTP has promised SAG that isn’t on paper. Surely there has to be something of that nature that explains why they a) took such a crap deal, b) didn’t let SAG into negotiations (or briefy them for days), and c) won’t even wait a few weeks before voting — when the worst they can end up with is what they already have in front of them. I stongly believe there is some type of verbal promise to AFTRA (that they foolishly think will come true) that is tying them so tightly to their lame deal. If not, why don’t they release a statement that says “We think our membership will be proud of this deal, whatever SAG believes they can accomplish” instead of “We’re being bullied to see what the other union gets and we don’t think that’s fair.”
This is a real opportunity for Mr. Allen and Mr. Rosenberg to make a name for themselves, because, at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.
One correction, however. Alan Rosenberg’s citation of gas at 63 cents rising 700% to today’s $5 price doesn’t take into account relative purchasing power between the dollar of 1978 when compared to the current inflationary value. Based on standard conversion of value, the 1978’s 63 cents has an equivalent purchasing power of $2 today. This means that the actual value discrepancy of gas between the two eras is actually 250%, not 700%.
Which is not as drastic as one initially thinks when compared to the overall peak oil situation.
Dave Clennon, the irony is that the actions of Allen Rosenberg and Patrick Verone are the reason why the crews have taken such a beating. Everytime a union creates a work stoppage, it hits the crews the hardest. Furthermore, which you might not realize about how business works is that the studios set a budget for labor (just like any other business). They don’t care how the budget gets allocated, but they make sure they work within the budget to achieve their desired level of profit. So, for every extra dollar Patrick Verone gets for the writers, thats a dollar less available for crew. This will continue until the unions jack up the cost of labor so high that there isnt enough left in the budget to pay non-union labor and then the project gets outsourced.
Joe B.,
I understand your claim that there is nothing to lose by AFTRA waiting to ratify their agreement. However, that assesment is flat wrong. Until it is ratified, the AMPTP can revoke the deal at anytime. (Remember when they forced the WGA to accept a deal damn near overnight???)
If AFTRA were to play ball with SAG and honour its request to delay, then SAG can’t reach an agreement with the AMPTP (which to this point they haven’t shown any indication they can); AFTRA would be screwed. AFTRA would have lost all credibility with the AMPTP by reneging on the agreement they had negotiated and you can bet when AFTRA then decides to ratify – the AMPTP is going to say not so fast my friend. Remember some of the gains you negotiated from us a few months ago in order to wrap up our deal, well we are no longer willing to give you that…
Everybody here needs to remember this is a business. Understanding how businesses and business negotiations operate is crucial. I understand what Joe B. was thinking. It seems logical when you don’t have all the facts. SAG knows damn well what the downside and risks would be to AFTRA in delaying their ratification vote, but they fail to even mention it. But then again considering that SAG has no love lost for AFTRA it isn’t surprising. Great move by SAG, they know AFTRA can’t delay their ratification, but they get to blame AFTRA for their shortcommings in negotiations and win a couple points in the PR battle of the unions.
My only thought about all this is that us the viewers are gonna be the ones to suffer once again from this second strike.
Dear “Don’t Be So Short-Sighted”
The decision to shut down the industry rests squarely in the hands of the eight men who rule this town. (And no, it’s not the mayor and the city council.)
I can’t tell whether you’re a real crew member or not. It would help if you didn’t hide behind the fake handle.
You say, “the studios set a budget for labor.” Fair enough. But who told you that that budget is the law of God and the galaxy? It’s a bunch of numbers. They adjust those numbers every day, and if enough workers stand together, those workers can force the suits in the suites to “re-think” that budget — And maybe squeeze a little less profit out of the bodies of the people who ACTUALLY produce the entertainment.
My knowledge, based on living with a 2nd camera assistant, is that crews have been exploited and beaten down, day after day, year after year, by their employers, NOT by writers and actors who have the guts to stand up for themselves and demand just compensation for their work.
The men and women who work behind the cameras have earned my lasting respect for their skills, the honesty and the diligence of their approach to their work, their sense of humor and their sheer endurance.
If the day ever comes when I.A.T.S.E. members get the gumption to overthrow their lazy, feckless leader-collaborators; if the day ever comes when a majority of crew workers decides they’ve taken enough of an unjust screwing from the ruling moguls; if the day ever comes when my I.A.T.S.E. Sisters and Brothers vote to stop working for their rich-get-richer bosses and investors — then I will march beside them and I swear by this holy planet, I will never cross their picket lines, no matter the personal consequences, because when that day comes, we’ll have Solidarity across the trades and we’ll be as close to invincible as human beings can come.
Actors and writers aren’t the enemies of the crews. Their enemies are our common enemy, the eight executives who rule this town and who decide our fate — until we decide to take our future into our own hands.
Si, la verdad es que — se puede. Cualquier creemos juntos es posible.
Dave Clennon
David
WE IA members will never go out on strike. The reason being that whoever the IA president is, he owns our contract. Even if we vote it down our president can approve it over our objections.
SAG members will never authorize a strike after the 100 day writers walkout. And now rather than take care of their own business, their negotiating committee instead takes aim at AFTRA.
SAG members, instead, should throw these two negotiating bozos overboard and find some leaders that can get a fair deal achieved.