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2ND UPDATE: New SAG-AMPTP post coming with all new information…
Just now, the Big Media cartel’s negotiating clique, the AMPTP, issued this statement about SAG’s decision to seek a strike authorization vote from its members now that all talks have broken down and federal mediation has been adjourned. (It’s interesting that the AMPTP has yet to comment on the WGA’s news that the infotainment conglomerates aren’t paying residuals for writers’ work that is reused on New Media. That was the key issue during the 100-day strike and now the WGA has filed for arbitration):
“Let’s review the facts: SAG is the only major Hollywood guild that has failed to negotiate a labor deal in 2008. Now, SAG is bizarrely asking its members to bail out the failed negotiating strategy with a strike vote – at a time of historic economic crisis. The tone deafness of SAG is stunning.”
- SAG-AMPTP Talks Break Down; SAG Will Now Seek Strike Authorization
- SCANDAL! WGA Goes After Big Media For Reneging On New Media Payments
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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To: lineproducer@ 3:59
You wrote that you haven’t shot anything in LA for years, then continue on with your egocentric diatribe…please do us all a favor and stay in Romania and Vancouver…one less prick in Hollywood is a blessing to all.
Loser!
It’s amazing that there is not even a strike yet and all this drama has enraged so many people including myself.
In fact, the issue has already made my wife and I get in a fight tonight. Because I do my work, I suck producer’s dicks, I help actor’s get work again and again. I went to school, I finished school, I won awards, I did the hard work and now I get shit on. My mortgage is normal, no ARM, no bailout for me.
Thanks actors! When you picket, or just strike and skip walking the line, just know I already hate you forever.
Someone please tell me how the geniuses running SAG plan to keep AFTRA from taking over all new television production while SAG pickets.
Re: 3:59 pm today,
I can’t imagine how bad a line producer you have to be to not be able to find work in the United States.
The majority of actors in SAG are ALREADY unemployed! Of course they will get at least 75% on the ballots as it’s better to walk a picket line then sit around waiting for your agent to call. Go for it SAG and don’t puss out when the awards nights arrive as that is your ace in the hole. It’s so damn obvious what the truth is as we all know how producers treat their people, why do you think everyone despises them in our industry.. they are all just lawyers and we all know the reputations of that ilk.
“Anytime a person or group threatens the good of society, society will always cast them out” Will Smith, on Oprah this past week. Ironic.
You see the reason SAG has become the threat- they don’t bring any money to the table to share with the rest of us. Like them or hate them, the AMPTP brings something to the table for all of us- money. As a coordinator I get one of the worst possible deals of all union positions, however, SAG does not bring any money to the table to pay me- the studio does. Sorry, but my kids eat food that I buy with $$$money, not fan favorite emotions.
The fact that anyone can think of striking right now leaves me with the feeling that you make too much money already- if you can afford to strike!
A little over a year ago I sat in my house with my wife telling her I didn’t think there was a chance in Hell the WGA (of which I’m a member) would get the strike authorization vote.
I thought everyone was concerned about the economy and gas prices and they couldn’t afford not to work.
Then the strike happened and it lasted. We all got hurt and apparently the deal we struck with the studios isn’t being honored and we can’t do a damn thing about it.
Any of you commenting on here saying there is no way SAG will get the votes to strike because of the economy are as deluded as I was a year ago.
While the economy wasn’t in the present state over a year ago, it was getting rough for everyone and still my union voted to put us all out of work for 4 months to get gains that we’re just now realizing meant nothing.
I think we’re all in business with a big bully who can do what they want…because at the end of the day, we need them and their money to do what they do.
If it gets to a strike vote and all the members are educated and persuaded by their union that striking is the only way to fight the bully, it will happen.
And I’ll be looking to get to get a paper route.
I used to always sit back and say if I didn’t hit a certain level in my career by a certain point in time, I’d drop show business and go work on Wall Street.
Heh. I wonder if I can still go to medical school.
The producers have 4 EMPTY walls without the creativity of the writers and actors! Time to pay them FAIRLY…or keep your empty stages.
The studios are going down in this economy, regardless. With Obama’s plans for the internet and net neutrality, the indies will have an advantage. Studios contracts are a moot point when there are no studios involved. The future of the business is looking more and more independent.
A strike now could be more effective than ever. If the studios weren’t concerned about a strike, they wouldn’t issue these statements. Likely the posts calling for no strike are studio shills, especially if they’re pseudonyms. They’re worried. The days of big studio control are as numbered.
Dear “another writer” –
If you thought you’d go to wall street if you didn’t “make it” as a writer, then you’re not a real writer to begin with.
Yeah, the studio bosses are apparently not paying the Internet money we struck for, but then the arbitrators will simply rule in our favor. The arbitrators are neutral, approved by both sides. They’re not studio employees, but rather independent arbitrators who will decide based on what the new MBA calls for.
So we will get what we are owed eventually, as long as the fraidy-cat losers who run the guild’s legal department don’t cave and try to settle as is their wont. In other words, the studios can’t avoid paying us forever — they’re simply enjoying being pricks in the meantime. And of course, sending a message to SAG members along the lines of: do you really want to go out on strike for something we’ll just renege on anyway?
You have to be kidding! Striking during the worst recession in 20 years?? Leverage, there is none. Why? There is little money to produce anyway. SAG’s problem is it’s Leaders, they should be joined with Aftra. It was Tom Bosley and Melissa Gilbert who screwed SAG with their bad advice a while back.
The past eight years of huge prosperity for the top 1% of the country finds most Americans on their knees. How easily most here bend over to get on all 4′s. Get up and fight or get out the lube.
In less than 8 weeks (how good it feels to write that!) we get a pro-union Administration and the AMPTP will be singing a different tune so this is their last gasp before change begins at the Federal level. I hope SAG holds a very hard line until then because the Fed won’t be in the hands of Neocons for the first time this century. The present government is trying with one last dying gasp to bust 2 of the biggest union industries in the US, the entertainment and auto industries. In the past 8 years they have made broad gains in decimating union membership in the US, but the new administration has pledged to help build them again.
I’d advise everyone to read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine because many people here seem to be reeling from its implementation. To paraphrase Rumsfeld “You get people in a state of crisis and it disorients them, making it easier to move them from Point A to Point B”. If you can’t afford the book, walk to your local library, a resource we all too rarely take advantage of.
The only leverage that either union can ever really hope to gain would come from a SAG/AFTRA union.
That’s where the power will come from…
… just ask the AFL/CIO.
The actors seem to be generally too dumb/egotistical to vote for what’s right for themselves. Why stop now?
Right on Real Writer. You just forgot one more thing, the WGA legal department has the option of going to the NLRB in order to force new media payment. The NLRB can even void the current contract and force the AMPTP to negotiate a better one with the WGA.
I am just calling it like I see it and such offends the sensibilities of some then so be it. The ninety five to ninety eight percent of the guild membership that barely makes it as (insert here)/actor during the best of economic times will not make it in the current economic times if there is a strike (that < $5K per year acting is something). Striking for the hope that someday one will be part of the 2-5% of the “in” crowd of cronies and family members, while being quaint, just may not be feasible at this time.
Who do you think the Federal Prosecutor will be on this one? We had a party tonight and made bets on when the studios would have their first perp walk. It can be fun looking into all this from afar. Keep us posted Nikki.
Aftra productions will fill the void and more TV and film will be under Aftra contracts. Sag will not be locked out but will have made themselves redundant if they attempt a strike. We now will see the studios racing to put more quickie productions in the can as SAG will not attempt to authorize a strike before te Holidays giving the studios an extra couple of months to work and fill the cans. Just watch the project notices come up on Monday, you’ll see. Then the vote will fail as the SAG actors bail to AFTRA to be able to work and survive and SAG will be replaced by the weaker actors guild. Those of us in the other unions will ride the production wave in the coming months and save our earnings to weather the death of SAG and survive somehow. Hollywood will go on without SAG. Merry Chistmas Rosenberg good job!
Dear SAG Members,
Please vote NO on a strike. This is NOT the time to do it. My friends, co-workers and I would run a serious risk of losing our jobs should one happen (God knows you’ll draw it out like you did the commercial strike).
Former co-workers and I already lost our previous jobs from your last strike (how’s that commercial money treating you these days?) and I don’t feel like going through all of that again. Especially now, given today’s climate.
There’s millions of us out there who can be greatly affected by your vote. All I ask is that you consider us.
“In less than 8 weeks (how good it feels to write that!) we get a pro-union Administration and the AMPTP will be singing a different tune so this is their last gasp before change begins at the Federal level.”
And of course, the *first* thing they’ll do is come riding to the rescue of Hollywood.
*snicker*
Its so cute to see people out of touch with politics in the real world place their bets on Federal Intervention.
Everyone needs to remember that during the WGA strike, the AMPTP paid a consulting firm to post on this website. That’s a fact. So I think it’s safe to assume that they’ve got their shills posting again. During the strike the studio flaks often posted as below-the-line workers, thus attempting a divide-and-conquer strategy. As if most B-T-L-ers would love management and hate their fellow union workers.
So please take any striking=disaster posts with a grain or ton of salt.
The AMPTP has made their position quite clear. Their last best final offer is entirely unacceptable. I will vote in favor of the strike authorization.
SAG will never get a better offer without a strike authorization. Why would the AMPTP budge if there was no chance of a strike?
So that’s the decision SAG members need to make. Do you take a chance on a strike to get a better offer, or do you basically tell your leadership to cave. And remember, not only would SAG have to get a strike authorization to move the AMPTP off their current position, SAG would probably also have to actually walk out for at least a day just to prove to the AMPTP that they actually had the balls to call a strike. Sorry to go all machospeak, but that’s the only language the AMPTP speaks. The AMPTP will not move until they see they might actually be faced with a strike. Then the studios can decide if it’s worth giving SAG what amounts to only a tiny bit more money or risk having their struggling companies teeter into bankruptcy (a real risk which will be even more of a possibility a few months out from now).
Dear A Real Writer:
Jesus H., you must be loaded! It must feel wonderful to sit back so smugly and advise everyone not to give any merit to what the majority of the actual people that will be negatively affected by a strike have to say. (Seriously, barely anyone in SAG is an actual working actor, what do they have to lose if there is a strike and this town stops functioning?)
Neither I, nor any of the other BTL or businesses people that have posted their thoughts against a strike are paid shills. To anyone. We are REAL people, with REAL families to support, REAL bills to pay and/ or REAL employees that depend on us for paychecks to support their own families.
How arrogant and short-sighted of you to dismiss our concerns. I, for one, walked the lines during YOUR strike and was extremely supportive. Even while I was, at the same time, suffering financially because, in my business, if nothing is in production, my clients pay me nothing. Hell, I even arranged for pizza to be delivered several times along with other free shit for everyone long after the novelty and do-gooder photo-ops had passed.
It’s nice of you to show guild solidarity. Really, it is. However, for you to sit there and say that the concerns of the very same people who supported you during your four months of shutting this town down (every group I picketed with had almost as many BTL and everything else as there were writers) are from ‘fakes’ is ignorant.
I’ve got your “grain or ton of salt” right here, Real Writer. Right. Here.
STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!
These big dumb corrupt evil studios need to be put in check.
Earth to Transpo!!!
AFTRA acting jobs aren’t that safe either. Click on the link in my name and you will see what I mean. Just about the only AFTRA job that is safe belongs to Al Roker, and even then NBC could cut him in favor of somebody else because he makes too much money. All the AFTRA consists of is all the talk show, weatherpeople, and cable network programming outside of pretty much every primetime scripted program on cable. Add in all the Radio personalities including those who are famous, it is very likely that actors and actresses, including Ellen Degeneres and Whoopi Goldberg, daytime soaps (which is the subject the link in my name), the 1% of primetime broadcast programming, and most of the scripted cable broadcasting, equal up to only 10% of AFTRA’s voting base.