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The Screen Actors Guild released the following statement in response to AMPTP's trades ad Monday:
LOS ANGELES (December 14, 2008) --“There they go again. The AMPTP’s ad is great fiction, with convoluted bullet points and confused messages -- and, it’s completely wrong.
Here’s the truth:
-- Under the AMPTP’s current offer, streaming of new television product on hulu.com and other new media platforms pays day performers about $46 for the first year’s use. Not per run of the episode, but for the whole year, and that’s only after a 17-day FREE rerun window. Peter Chernin, Chairman and CEO of News Corp., told industry analysts that his company’s ad-supported online programming site, the already $12 million profitable HULU.com, was a “replacement for reruns”.
-- Under the AMPTP’s current offer, there is no union jurisdiction for original made for new media projects made for budgets under $15,000 per minute. That’s the vast majority of all new media. We have signed more than 800 productions to our SAG new media agreement. If we can do it, why can’t the AMPTP? We are certainly willing to show them how it’s done.
-- Their proposal for original programming running on abc.com, nbc.com, cbs.com, and other network new media platforms is – zero. Yes, seriously, zero.
-- Management is gutting the contract through the demand that we remove force majeure which has been a protection for actors since the first SAG agreement in 1937.
-- Management has also demanded broad and sweeping changes to the more than half-century old clip consent provision which guarantees actors the right to consent to the use of their image and to be compensated for that use.
-- Minimum increases in traditional media doesn’t do actors any good if there aren’t any minimums in new media.How can that be anything but “the end of residuals?”
How can that be anything but a situation in which it is “impossible for actors to make a living.”
How can that be anything but “A massive roll back.”
How can that be anything but “Life or death for SAG members”Make no mistake about it, this is exactly what management is offering in original programming streamed on new media:
Minimum Rate – Zero
Residual Structure – Zero
Overtime Protections – Zero
Forced Call Consideration – Zero
Young Performer (Minors) Protections – ZeroManagement is offering a lousy deal with “Zero” in new media and is threatening the promotion of non-union work in a residual-free environment without minimum compensation.
That could be the beginning of the end for actors careers and livelihoods.”
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Wait, what is this loss of minors protection? I know they can’t violate the law regarding the hours minors work, but is this related ot the protection of their money from rapacious relatives? Are we returning to the 50’s when child performers were broke at 18 because the adults who were supposed to protect them stole their money instead? Can someone please explain this to me? Thank you.
Very direct, concise, and hard-hitting facts.
To me it seems hard to argue about.
SAG is right. AMPTP is trying to make them run a gauntlet.
Sorry, SAG. We’re not buying the rhetoric anymore. You are the John McCain of election ‘08. Prediction: strike talk will be over in ten days.
In theory AG is right. Take a look at the date on his comment and mine. It says December 14, 2008. It doesn’t take an idiot to discover that when you add ten to fourteen, you get Twenty-Four, and I don’t mean the FOX show. As I recall, December 24th is the big day. Christmas Eve where we will all be with our families for Christmas dinner and other traditions. Maybe it is trimming the tree, driving around and looking at lights, or opening presents, but strike talk will stop, however SAG’s reality will be in their mailboxes in early January. That vote will be to either punish the AMPTP for horrible negotiations, or let their crime go unpunished and accept a horrible deal that contains rollbacks galore.
AG,
Prediction: No one is listening to you or buying the Amptp lies.
Prediction: Sag will strike in January with strong support.
AG (above) links to a dead URL. Typical AMPTP shill. Sic semper tyranus.
SAG wrote: “That could be the beginning of the end for actors careers and livelihoods.”
That’s just more self-defeating fearmongering & hyperbole from an increasingly desperate “leadership”. YAWN!
In any case, wouldn’t the “end” of residual-based “careers and livelihoods” free up more capital to be infused industry-wide, thereby creating more production and employment opportunities (i.e., more profit) for employable actors?
Sounds like a reasonable trade-off to me.
AG is short for AMPTP, and AMPTP is short for Egg Sucking Dogs….
I swallowed a line from my guild about how a strike would really hit the studios hard and we’d win win win…. And then we ate the DGA deal.
You’re eating the DGA deal, SAG. Deal with it, sign, get back to work. Just the threat of a strike is screwing things up for everyone.
Maybe we’d believe the AMPTP were bargaining in good faith if they actually didn’t just keep repeating the same rhetoric over and over and actually set out for everyone to see what they are offering. The SAG have stated some serious roll-backs above,so are the AMPTP willing to come out and directly deny those statements with actual facts or will they just spout the same blarney again…i’m guessing the latter
Anyone (AG) who posts comments in this post about SAG rhetoric or a strike being a non-starter will look stupid. Listen up AMPTP, the facts are in SAG’s favor. If you care about making money in the future with quality suppliers (writers, actor), do a fair deal. Otherwise, I predict a new producers group will be formed that will do fair and transparent deals, and production will flow that direction, slowly draining you of your power.
Screw it! Just keep working without a contract till the GREAT DEPRESSION is over.
The. Horse. Is. Out. Of. The. Barn. Time for a new guild that amalgamates all the film service guilds, with the execption of the Teamsters. SAG, DGA, WGA, AFTRA,and IATSE in one Associated Artists Guild (yes a dolly grip is certainly an artist) – too late to do anything else. Let’s make the deal, and form a brand new beginning immediately afterward, and bargain together from now on – as one!
AG, how exactly is this rhetoric? These are facts about what the AMPTP wants us to settle for. Just because you say it’s not true to avoid a strike doesn’t mean that it is.
If the Internet isn’t treated in the same way as “traditional” media – which is quickly going the way of the dinosaur – then it’s a rollback. Plain and simple.
I’m voting yes on the strike authorization.
An opportunity for us is what it was. To create new bridges to other unions, particularly AFTRA.
Now SAG is a punchline. It’s not all entirely our fault, few truly predicted just how bad this economic slowdown was going to be. But it’s here. And the nonsense about how, “SAG was founded during the depression” is another huge misreading of the zeitgeist. SAG was founded during a time of great populist union support, during a groundswell that was lifting up all labor movements. This is not that time, folks. Look at the UAW. If you think anyone is going to support our strike (a support we would desperately need for success) then you are drinking the kool aid.
Also it’s time for our union to stop blaming the world and really look inward. Why are we so divided? Why are we so scandalously unemployed?
I honestly don’t know the answers. Except that a strike is not one of them.
There is really no doubt, that taking advantage of a ‘once in a lifetime’ economic situation, the AMTP are taking a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity to pay next to nothing for new media product, safe in the knowledge that once the genie is out the bottle, it won’t ever go back in (c.f. DVDs).
The real tragedy is that they have accomplices in the form of NY SAG, AFTRA, etc.
The beginning of the end? What the frack?
Nothing like fear mongering to make those on the fence fall off.
Serious question I don’t know the SAG by-laws, if the membership gets fed up with the Alans does SAG have a recall option to get him out of office? Could the board oust him?
The strike will happen after the Golden Globes and the AMPTP will finally negotiate in good faith right before their precious Oscars.
Please avoid putting thousands out of work and start negotiating in good faith now, AMPTP. Not doing so in this economy is immoral. And yes, you and you alone will be responsible for putting so many out of work.
Comment by rosettaresearch “Wait, what is this loss of minors protection?”
As if the AMPTP cared. People are just numbers to them – numbers that eat food and take ‘their’ money.
SAG board serisouly you are killing yourseleves and all of us. Newmedia? Are you kidding me. You are automatically pre supposing that Studios will make projects geared directly for the internet for under $15,000 per minuite. If someone in SAG can name me 25 projects that came out this year from a Studio that was directly made for the interent that cost less then $15,000 per minuite I might agree with you that it is important but is that worth bankrupting an entire town? Does SAG really think they can’t bring up the same issues in 3 years?
rosettaresearch … What the AMPTP is trying to do is structure their business model so that actors of every ilk (including kids) are one-time, one-payment freelancers for hire. One very low payment, I might add. They can use the actors likeness however they want and however many times they want without further compensation. No more residuals, no more protections, no more union oversight, just a one-time hire, over-n-out. They’re trying to break the unions because unions are the middle man that puts a damper on the producers’ full capacity to make money. You know, ’cause of fairness and safe working conditions and crap like that.
New media is ground zero all over again. You all remember why unions were formed in the first place, right? Well, in a way, SAG is being forced to unionize all over again, because they are, essentially, not being recognized as a union by the AMPTP. This would be the same AMPTP that’s not honoring the WGA agreement so many of you think was such a good deal. The AMPTP are thugs, liars and union-busters.
If you think your life will be better without union protection, by all means vote no on the strike authorization as Ben Silverman’s creepy laugh rings between your ears. The joke will be on you.
I would like to know if you still get SAG juristiction on any project that has 1 SAG covered performer?
Meaning if they need any kind of a face- you all have to be covered, or is it different?
I work in the internet industry and see how ad money is being made. The AMPTP is flat out lying. Period. You don’t ask your plumber to rough in your house for free do you? Acting is a profession just like any other and people should be paid for their services.
I work in the internet industry and see how much ad money is made. The AMPTP is flat out lying. Period. They are not only building the infrastructure to deliver content over the internet but are gearing future productions specfically for that format. Televisions now have an ethernet port built into them. Cable boxes are IP based. Soon they will argue that a show is broadcast over one of the IP based boxes as internet broadcast even though the consumer thinks it a TV broadcast. Language is important.
Also, you wouldn’t ask your plumber to rough in your house for free, but that is what the producers are asking us to do. Acting is a profession just like all others and should we should be paid for our services.
-Don’t react in fear. That is what they want.
SAG, this is truth?
Couldn’t find that Chernin quote, care to back it up? And if it is that profitable, who deserves that money? Not the folks that run the website, or get the ad buys, or any of the other unions that have a similar deal? Why do actors deserve more? Name a good reason, not that you’re the face of the show. You don’t work any harder than the PA who is getting paid $650.00 a week, no fringe/benefits, and that PA is thankful to be working in this industry.
$15k per minute, huh? Again, back it up please. Considering SAG isn’t the one fronting the money to create new media, its no wonder you can draft a contact around it. You basically have zero stake in it. Put your money up front and then talk.
I imagine a reason the dot com platform is at zero now is b/c no one has figured how to make money off those shows. New media is figuring out its place in the world, right now they don’t have companies that want to buy ad space on it. So literally, your evil studios are putting money into something that they aren’t making money off of, and are waiting for that convergence of media, art, and business.
I’m actually with you on this one. We should all have a force majeure clause.
Specifics? Is the studio using a Stallone in “Rambo” image to sell Rambo related stuff? I think you said they were changing the provision, so you’ll still be paid…for standing there…getting your picture taken…in a costume made by other people…photographed by someone else…on a set built by others…either we should pay everyone involved with that image or you should be happy you’re getting paid at all in this profession. You’re deserved of some money, but how much do you really want?
There are no minimums in new media because, again, no one is making money off of it. Maybe in a few years we will, but until then, raising everything else should suffice (for at least 3 years).
And really…zero on everything? End of residuals? Impossible? Life or death? End for careers and livelihoods? Wow. Talk about fear mongering.
There’s reality, there’s rhetoric, there’s chest-thumping politics, and SAG, you’ve created the actor’s red scare.
I’m not saying the AMPTP has been in the right – but they compromised their unfair positions and gave in to the other unions.
I hope this is worth it to you. You are no longer preserving yourself, you are damaging others. You are damaging an entire industry, destroying people’s careers, hurting their families. Considering most of you aren’t working actors anyway, I hope you enjoy waiting tables and tending bar. I’m sure it’s satisfying.
The Questioner -
Asked and answered at a prior SAG Town Hall.
Yes, the moguls freely admitted in the room that they fully intend to thoroughly exploit the low-budget exemption if they get one.
Pilots are expensive, especially because the major networks like to make a lot of them, fiddle with them obsessively until they’re as homogenized as possible, reject most of them, and put the blandest on the air. It’s amazing a show like the Office can survive such a system.
The studios are looking to directly exploit hungry film students and others with a pittance of seed money in exchange for all manner of rights on the cheap in a totally non-union environment. Look what the studios already have in the DGA and WGA deals. The hungry film students will sell themselves for cheap because they figure next time at bat they can command a better number.
There are two problems with this for most hungry artists. One, the studios are counting on the next wave of hungry students right behind them. Two, and perhaps more important, the creative guilds that would back up that better number next time out are being negotiated into irrelevance.
SAG is drawing the line the DGA was stupid or too timid to draw, and the WGA wanted to draw more clearly but didn’t because of a potential internal revolt.
Those of us watching the moguls’ actions in new media and what they were telling Wall Street knew the DGA was being completely hoodwinked. The WGA, lamentably, did not fare much better. Justine Bateman’s analysis of the coming implementations of technology and changes in distribution was directly on the mark. It is her work, along with strong research by SAG’s team, that is reflected now in the guild’s position that the new media provisions in the AMPTP’s offer constitute a major rollback.
The AMPTP is engaged in a bald-faced full-court press to gut the creative guilds. SAG is the one union that stands between them and the end of the relevance of the creative guilds in Hollywood. Everyone – including the BTL unions, some of whose benefits are fixed to creative guild residuals – is now relying on SAG to hold the line against the free and wholesale exploitation of labor – creative and other – in the entertainment industry.
You SAG people are fooling yourselves if you think you’ll get 50% for strike authorization, much less 75%. Honestly, we’re in Jonestown territory at this point.
It’s not happening. You know what will happen?
Alan Rosenberg will send out his authorization ballots and after they come back showing a substantial lack of support for a strike, then he will officially have managed to lose even more leverage in these negotiations (something I didn’t even think possible).
You people are real good at cutting off your noses to spite your faces aren’t you?
Well done.
Why does anyone need an actual strategy when you have intrasigence instead?
Interesting…..but what I find more disturbing is the fact that Alan Rosenberg called off the National Board Meeting. Apparently the NY contingent was not very happy: with neither the strike authorization vote, nor the fact that Rosenberg called this meeting at the last minute (I believe it was announced on Friday to happen Tuesday), not giving them a chance to plan. In addition, the NY contingent wanted to know why, in the day of videoconferencing, was a face to face meeting necessary. Rosenberg’s response: cancel the whole thing. He also didn’t feel that a videoconference would have been ‘productive.’
Sounds to me like he’s trying to quiet dissent on the Executive Committee. Not a very good perception for their members to have of a supposedly healthy labor union facing the challenges outlined ad nauseum on this discussion board.