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Los Angeles (November 11, 2010) – Screen Actors Guild today announced that tentative agreements were reached on Wednesday, November 10, on new, three-year contracts covering basic cable live action, basic cable animation and television animation productions.
The current contracts expire on June 30, 2011, and the new three-year agreement will be effective from July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2014.
The provisions of the new agreements are similar to those achieved Nov. 7, on successor agreements to the Screen Actors Guild Codified Basic Agreement for theatrical motion picture and television production.
Highlights of the new, tentative agreements include:
– The term of each agreement is three years, commencing July 1, 2011
– Wage increases of 6% over the terms of the agreements with 2% in each of the three years, effective July 1, 2011, 2012 and 2013
– A 10% increase in the current rate of employer contributions paid to the Screen Actors Guild Pension & Health Plans bringing the total contribution rate to 16.5% effective July 1, 2011
– Details of the new agreements will be submitted for approval to the National Board of Screen Actors Guild.Formal negotiations on these contracts began on Monday, Nov. 8 at AMPTP headquarters in Los Angeles.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Negotiations began on the 8th and ended today?
Wow. That’s some pathetic “negotiating”
Roll over would be more appropriate.
“Cable!”…. oh man, stop it guys you’re killing me. Let me catch my breath. I’m about to laugh up a lung. Increases in CABLE…that’s so rich! Good one. Good one. You really had me there for a moment.
Now, come on, seriously, what gains have you made in internet where all programming is moving in the next couple of years? You know HULU is boasting $240 MILLION in revenue for 2010 from advertising run on its internet site and union actors get virtually no residuals from film, TV, or commercials run there because you guys at UFS said the internet would never make money. Are you still thinking it won’t make money? Hello…. Neddy Vaughn? …..Ken? ……the internet?….anyone…..
none of our business but
how did we do on residuals ?
Residuals? What residuals? You’ll get nothing and be told to be grateful for it. SAG membership is going to get fed a giant shit sandwich while complimentng the chef.
SAG won’t get a residual increase as long as AFTRA is in the game. AFTRA gave away residual in basic cable. For example, all the AFTRA FX shows have 12 exhibition windows. FX can run the show as many time as they want for 12 days.
You might ask why did actors vote for such a rotten AFTRA deal? Well they didn’t. AFTRA’s National Board, made up of people like reporter David Browde and Radio Announcers did. These people do not understand or care how actors make a living. They just want to fill the coffers of the AFTRA H&R fund with actor’s money.
Guess what? With Unite For Strength running SAG, you probably won’t get to vote on the Basic Cable contract either. Unlike last year, under the previous regime. UFS is busy turning SAG into AFTRA.
No change in residuals. Still crap. Even though ad rates on basic cable are getting closer and closer to network rates, basic cable residuals are still crappy. No increase whatsoever. No changes in work that is streamed on the internet either. This contract is just as crappy as the network contract.
But the bright note: At least SAG basic cable shows pay residuals for every re-run. AFTRA’s don’t. And AFTRA did not negotiate with SAG. They sat this one out. They didn’t want to be forced to match their contracts to SAG’s. That’s why the majority of basic cable shows are AFTRA’s. They don’t pay residuals for every re-run. No way did AFTRA want to jeopardize that goose. NO WAY. How’s that for a “merger” partner?!
The Tv/Theatrical “win” is the 1.5% increase in P&H contributions.
That’s essentially it.
But if you “gave away” or “allowed it to be taken” or “did nothing about it” or “helped it happen to facilitate merger,” whatever your explanation is, feel free to add one, how can LOSING 40% of the P&H contributions to SAG by the wholesale loss of TV jurisdiction to AFTRA, with NO fight from SAG officials – be OFFSET by a 1.5% GAIN in P&H contributions to 2 unions that plan on not existing within a year, replaced by a third union that will have a completely new constitution, will have to be recognized by the AMPTP as the sole bargaining agent for actors in movies, TV and net, and built from the ground up?
Isn’t, under those circumstances, this 1.5% P&H “gain” essentially illusory, and open to potential challenges and changes in a new union, the content of which hasn’t even been seriously discussed yet?
Under UFS, The Screen Actors Guild has done nothing but LOSE whole parts of its former self. Can anyone argue differently?
Seriously?
So, is anybody else even beginning to wonder why we are following these current leaders anywhere?
The signing of a contract is just that – the signing of a contract. It is not, in and of itself, an “accomplishment,” unless the new contract KEEPS parity, or makes gains.
I would say that’s a generally accepted definition of what could even be considered “a good contract.”
So, under UFS, they have now “signed” 2 new TV/Theatrical contracts.
The 2009 contract gave AWAY clip consent, product placement protections and force majeure, and did NOT get a protective, fair deal in new media.
Much was predicted, or promised, including Nikki Finke’s prediction of “the mother of all strikes” – NOW. That would be, as in, right NOW, it was predicted ALL the creative unions would come together, face down the AMPTP on new media, restore lost items to our contracts, and we would, by our solidarity, be unstoppable.
Anyone but me remember those sure-fire predictions?
But, instead, we have had two BAD, REALLY BAD contracts “signed” by UFS,, and there is no indication that merger will reverse ANYTHING regarding our losses.
When we merge does ANYONE think “Uncle Joe’s Actor’s Union” is going to:
get back clip consent?
get back product placement protections?
get back force majeure?
get a fair, protective deal in new media, which would have to be something along the lines of a percentage of distributors gross?
get back travel?
Can we ALL at least admit we are either allowing, or are stumped as to how to stop, the wholesale dismantling of SAG in favor of a third union that will reflect the negotiating philosophy of the people now in charge at both SAG and AFTRA?
Which, by ANY fair appraisal would have to be called “producer friendly?”
Do any SAG members even care?
Is anyone in the entertainment media at least going to chronicle the dismantling of the Screen Actors Guild? Is there at least the acknowledgment that this is happening out there, based on the direction the union has gone in the last two years?
This has never been anything approaching easy for SAG, the gaining of benefits, the keeping of benefits, by contract.
So, when will this current environment change – where Deadline Hollywood and other mainstream media outlets simply PRINT these things and the membership of SAG simply ACCEPTS these things, and be replaced by the “militancy” – that dirty word – the complete loss of which has OBVIOUSLY delivered grievous body-blows to the formerly powerful Screen Actors Guild?
Is this it? Is it really over? Does ANYONE think this proposed new union is going to recover ANYTHING that has been lost, as well as NOT INSISTED ON and NOT being willing to strike over (a fair deal in the NOW and FUTURE of movie, TV and net acting – “new media”) and if so, why, based on the performance of UFS so far?
Do movie, TV and net actors even UNDERSTAND they are in SERIOUS decline under their current leadership and negotiating performance and philosophy?
UFS must be investigated. UFS are criminal scum. The coordinated destruction of SAG is a matter for the FBI.
On the off chance SAG lasts that long this contract will put a stranglehold on actors until 2014. No mother-of-all-strikes, no nothing. Just meek acceptance, because of membership apathy and the selfish cowardice of Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks and Matt Damon.
Notice how the studio propaganda pros don’t even need to post on SAG topics anymore. No need to kick a dead horse. Actors, our guild is dead. We were beaten. We lost.
This the current actors’ negotiating committee does seem to have stockholm syndrome. get them a really good lawyer pro bono and an abuse counselor.