Comments (7)

• Oh Great! Now SAG in all its wisdom and glory… because they can’t get what they want from the AMPTP due to their own internal conflicts and poor strategy, punishes the Indies… talk about kicking the dog.
  Oh yes, and you too, AMPTP… you should all be ashamed of your heavy handed tactics and outright greed. Just my POV (Indie Producer/Director and member SAG & PGA).

  Comment by mark — Saturday January 17, 2009 @ 11:05am PST  Reply to this post

• GCC’s from SAG are such a joke because if there was a strike, no affiliated unions (IBT, IASTSE, ETC.) would be able to cross the picket lines to get on any lots anyway. Why SAG seems to love “indies” baffles me as they are the worst when it comes to pay scale and if they actually do make it big (Brokeback Mountain), they become even worse about compensating for the success not to mention that “indies” are distributed though “art house” companies like Focus Features or Seacrhlight that are owned by Universal and Fox thereby keeping the ‘big studios” in product though any strike or lockout that might occur. The only thing a GCC acheives is loss of leverage and strength to organized labor.

  Comment by Bill — Saturday January 17, 2009 @ 5:55pm PST  Reply to this post

• Wow, after all that flag waving from Doug Allen about how any strike won’t be that bad for actors because of the “800 independent productions.” Am I the only one who isn’t shocked?

  Regardless of this press release, I’ve got friends who have been out of work for a while now because SAG has been going back and forth on their commitment to this plan.

  Many independent productions have been sitting on the sidelines just like the AMPTP ones because SAG refused to give them a straight answer… all the while Doug Allen was publishing releases talking about it as if it was rock solid.

  The choice to drop them is NOT out of left field. The latest developments are just their excuse.

  Comment by somebody — Sunday January 18, 2009 @ 4:55am PST  Reply to this post

• Bill, get your facts straight. All the industry union agreements are ‘no strike – no lockout’ agreements. Other guilds/unions cannot ’sympathy strike’ if they are under contract (which they all are, apart from SAG.) They can join the picket line in solidarity if they are not employed on the show, or during their leisure hours if they are, but SAG striking does not mean you lose your DGA/WGA/IATSE staff & crew.

  Terminating the GCC program is a big deal.

  Comment by Troof — Sunday January 18, 2009 @ 5:49am PST  Reply to this post

• Troof – I was not talking about a “sympathy strike”, I meant that if there are pickets at say the Warner lot that other unions could not or would not cross the line to get in or out. Get your facts straight – ask anyone in the business if they know who crossed a line during any strike and you will find that the names are never forgotten for the life of that person’s career. Also, management cannot force another union to cross the line if the member feel it is unsafe in any way. Granted you could lose your job but you will not be branded a scab.

  Comment by Bill — Sunday January 18, 2009 @ 10:13am PST  Reply to this post

• Perfect storm, guys. As many of you know — those in production who aren’t lucky to be on a TV series shooting right now — there’s a defacto strike goin’ on. The studios aren’t greenlighting features so okay, let’s look at the indi’s. Oh wait, there’s a little thing called a depression going on and the indis are all losing their financing! My husband — who works in production — hasn’t worked for two months and he’s always working when he wants to. What’s next? Pilots! And they’re all gonna be AFTRA folks — last year many pilots were being shot on hi-def video — so this is gonna be an easy fit for them. And everyone in production is gonna be fighting over these jobs. Fun!

  Simply put — SAG is holding the production end of the business hostage. I can’t believe more people aren’t incensed by this. And I’m pro-union here, but not pro-stupid!

  Comment by anonrighter — Sunday January 18, 2009 @ 1:37pm PST  Reply to this post

• Bill – nonsense.

  Your postulation was that GCCs were worthless because sister unions wouldn’t/couldn’t cross the picket line.

  Firstly, GCCs were for independent producers only. No studios need apply. So your imagined picket line at the Warners lot is irrelevant because indies usually don’t shoot on studio backlots.

  Secondly, there would likely be no picket line anyway because a GCC production, BY DEFINITION, would be authorized by SAG to continue production regardless of a strike. That was the whole freaking point of the GCCs. There would be no picket line to cross.

  Thirdly, your postulation that sister unions would not cross SAG picket lines is demonstrably false. The WGA, DGA and IA agreements stipulate ‘no strike – no lockout’ so as long as the terms of the WGA, DGA and IA agreements are being met, those unions/guilds CAN’T strike. And let’s assume for a moment that you’re right, and that peer pressure or solidarity would stop DGA/WGA/IA members crossing a SAG picket line. Well, by that logic, not a single DGA/SAG/IA member should have worked a day of work during the WGA strike. That is provably false. Sure, work was scarce because productions had shut down, but those that didn’t were still employing DGA/SAG/IA members quite happily.

  The point of all this is that you thrown out an unsubstantiated ‘theory’ – that GCCs were useless in practice. This theory is provably false as shown above.

  It’s easy for you to pooh-pooh something you clearly don’t understand…. if you did, you would know that GCC indie productions have kept New York crews hanging on by a lifeline these past 6 months… without GCCs there would have been ZERO PRODUCTION here.

  So your uninformed feelings to the contrary, a lot of us are going to miss the GCC and have probably just kissed goodbye to any chance of work for the forseeable future.

  Comment by Troof — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 6:24am PST  Reply to this post