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This morning, I received a tip to check out the rumor that Fox Studios television shows will be going all video/all AFTRA in 2009, that older film shows will be shot on video, and that SAG actors will be renegotiated with AFTRA contracts. Here is the response I received from Twentieth Century Television: ”With all the uncertainty surrounding the stalled negotiations with SAG, TCFTV is indeed considering shooting its spring pilots under the AFTRA agreement. As for shows already in production, we are exploring every option including transitioning shows from SAG to AFTRA.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Oh how the studios must be laughing at us. SAG is like a bear caught in a trap getting weaker and weaker. SAG NY leaves SAG for dead. So did all the big time actors (who also happen to be producers BEE TEE DOUBLE YOU). Now Chernin goes for the kill. When…How…will SAG exist in such a weakened condition?
We need a Christmas miracle.
to reel busy
what should the actors do?
how about,
everybody call AFTRA and tell them to stop undercutting SAG?
Hey, folks…what’s the point of whining about AFTRA continuing to steal contracts? WE ARE AFTRA! 40,000 dual card holders.
If we don’t like what AFTRA does, WE have the power to change it. Just be strong enough to STAND UP. No one’s forcing you to work under an inferior AFTRA contract.
Of course the producers will go to which ever contract is cheapest for them. Duh…!
If we, the members, want a contract to remain a SAG contract, then we have to stand up and say NO when they try to move it to AFTRA.
Have we NO courage left at all?
Will we just roll over and let the AMPTP have it’s way with us?
Will we truly LET them do away with our residual formulas? With Force Majeure? Will we permit them to use non-unon actors? We are a UNION, for God’s sake!! Why are we condoning non-union work??!!
Good God, people — have SOME sense of your own worth.
Stand up for rank and file actors.
Support the negotiating team and the board that YOU voted in place.
VOTE “YES” on the strike authorization.
SAG is fighting the tide and should have merged with AFTRA when they could have given birth to a new, more powerful union. Film is not long for this world on TV. HD Video will be used exclusively sooner than anyone thinks. This is not an idle threat from Chernin. This is the future. AFTRA will be making all the deals. Anyone who doesn’t think this is true is probably still using a VHS recorder or an 8 track.
Entirely as I thought, AFTRA agreed a shitty contract to destroy SAG, an objective where their interests align with the AMTP, and clear evidence that they don’t care about the well-being of their members, other than increasing their numbers.
Do any “Vote No” people seriously believe that (i) the AMTP will be any more generous next time round, something they have never done in the past and/or (ii) that the guilds will work together when AFTRA are out to gain membership dues and power at SAG’s expense… why would they?
I would love to take a multi-thousand dollar bet with somebody that neither of those happens. Baldwin/Devito any others are you reading this?
Plus this is the AMTP already changing their original offer, now something else SAG will have to negotiate is coverage on pilots, and the AMTP can use that as extra leverage in taking things off the table.
I have to say as an industry outsider I have never witnessed a worse situation in which the negotiating committee of an institution has been comprehensively undermined from the inside. Never.
It now looks like both SAG and AFTRA have answered my earlier question – can’t happen.
Could they cancel the SAG show and then order a pilot for say CSI the Next Generation Las Vegas under AFTRA or any other show.
The Questioner:
It does zero good and enormous harm to get your facts wrong as the AMPTP ramps up its fear campaign.
Again – existing SAG shows to AFTRA? No. Read AFTRA’s own release above to confirm this. New shows? Yes.
The cultivation of scripts leading to green lights for pilots, leading to pilots, leading to decisions regarding whether they are going to be picked up or not, is a multi-month, sometimes longer, process.
The AMPTP CAN try to speed it up, but the fear they will be warping the process, and therefore damaging the creative possibilities for these hothouse flowers will give them serious pause.
A wholesale shift to dropping current popular SAG prime-time network shows, and shifting to an AFTRA-only prime-time network slate, is not good for the creative process, which, ultimately, is what leads to those rare hits or semi-hits vs. the multitudes of losers. That is not changing anytime soon.
Also, even AFTRA, that poacher extraordinaire, would think long and hard about making a full out play to take away all scripted prime-time network shows from SAG in terms of new pilots.
Despite AFTRA’s unsavory actions that have led to this current breach between the two unions, even AFTRA realizes its best interests lie in, at the very least, a workable relationship with SAG.
At a certain point, it also becomes clear to AFTRA (I believe it has already) that, despite AFTRA’s producer-friendly compliance in this contract so far, they understand the producers will cut their throats too if it serves the AMPTP’s purposes.
This is a time for calm, and to let SAG’s strike authorization process go forward AS ALREADY VOTED UPON by both the national and negotiating committees. IF the strike authorization passes, the final decision rests with the national board of SAG.
But, every day, any and all union members of ANY of the creative unions are seeing more and more clearly that the mercenary tactics of the AMPTP are only going to be stopped or even slowed by collective action.
If SAG strikes, the business will not shut down entirely, but it will be severely impacted, and the AMPTP knows that, and their shareholders will be very displeased by the results of a prolonged strike.
If you add that the SAG demands are all entirely reasonable and easily affordable by an AMPTP that truly wants to go forward into new media in a partnership with the makers of its products, rather than a grudge match of diminishing returns for both sides, then, the aggressive actions and statements of the AMPTP fall into a different context – one of bluster and bullying to make a strong p.r. pitch to stop SAG from getting a strike authorization from its members which will empower our negotiators to put the ball decidedly in the AMPTP’s court- “do YOU want to cause this work stoppage by forcing this unsignable contract down SAG’s throat, or do YOU want to actually, for the FIRST TIME, NEGOTIATE a contract instead of DICTATING the demise of middle-class actors to save money you could easily afford to pay.”
Jesus what backstabbing by Aftra.
Thank God directors can’t write.
AFTRA signed a producer-friendly (and actor-hostile) contract, so of course some networks want to produce more under AFTRA.
Unless AFTRA moves into theatrical production, the movies are still SAG. What the moguls don’t want anyone to notice with all their bluster about AFTRA television pilots is that a SAG strike would cripple film production and totally throw their 2010 and 2011 summer plans into chaos.
SAG has a lot of leverage, if the guild says to the AMPTP with one voice that we will not accept an actor-hostile union-busting contract.
As of this moment, the popular media is giving too much play to AMPTP desperation moves and the agendas of actor-producers who have a clear conflict-of-interest (take George Clooney. I love his work, I love his humanitarian work for Darfur, but the dude’s also a director and producer, and he tossed back his WGA card in a snit over a credit assignation issue on a film that almost nobody saw).
Actors need to keep in mind that this is the initial DVD argument on steroids. Over the next two decades or more there are tens of billions of dollars in compensation (pay and residuals) at stake for actors from new media. We cannot put off this fight. The future of the guild rides on this contract. It’s suicide to get this one wrong.
For those more in the know than me:
If there are 40,000 dual card holders and a goodly portion of them vote NO; that would mean the remaining 80,000 SAG only members would all have to vote YES and there still would not be a 75 percent approval for a strike.
Or, am I assuming wrongly that the overwhelming majority of dual card holders will vote NO?
I am an AFTRA member. I was forced to join AFTRA when I booked a recurring role on a cable show filming in NYC. After forking out the dues which were more than the show paid me for three days of filming and travel, housing,yeah I’m a union member. What??? no residuals? What??? no AFTRA castings in my home state?? WTF??? And then after the second episode…they wrote my character out!!!!! I know that happens to everyone. But dang it now I’m a card carrying member of the most useless union in the country.
What is the point of this union?? I made more money working on non-union productions than I ever will on anything from AFTRA. They are selling videos of my episodes, they have rerun them multiple times on the cable network, and are selling them on ITunes. How much of those profits do the AFTRA actors see?? Zero, zilch, nada!! I am SAG Eligible, what a beautiful thing this union is…was…
The contract that was already in place was already better than any other contract of any other union in any industry in this country. The leadership doesn’t really seem to have a grasp of what the economic situation is in this country. Just think about it… a SAG actor working on a SAG national commercial earns tens of thousands of dollars for 1 or 2 days of work.
I’m sure all those laid off GM employees would like that gig.
But I digress… AFTRA needs to ratify their inadequate contract, and SAG needs to rethink the timing of this strike. It would be a horrible thing if all the pilots/movies/series were AFTRA. This actor needs to pay the light bill and on those AFTRA rates that ain’t possible.
the game warden is inviting the poachers to dinner!!!!