SAG Update: Union Meets with Mediator

SAG leaders met Friday with the federal mediator, and in a statement said that they discussed with him the union's request for mediation and "the possibilities regarding the resumption of negotiations." The AMPTP is set to meet with the mediator Thursday.

It's hard to be optimistic though: the two sides are very far apart, and both are very dug in to their positions, particularly on new media. Unfortunately, I expect mediation will fail by around mid-November, leading to the negotiating committee sending a strike authorization vote to the membership. That reportedly takes 30-45 days, suggesting that we could have a strike in January.

I'd guess a strike, if one occurs, would start before the Globes (January 11), and that (regardless of when the strike, if any, starts) SAG will attempt to reduce the Globes to the same sort of cut-rate press conference it did last year during the writers strike, when A-list actors promised to boycott the ceremony, leading to its elimination. The strategy would be to then threaten to do the same to the Oscars -- a threat that was one of the factors that led to a resolution of the writers strike, just a couple weeks before the telecast.

This time is different though, and the strategy has less likelihood of success. By February of 2008, the studios had achieved all of the upside they could get out of the strike: they terminated unproductive writer deals (through contract provisions called force majeure), did their deal with the Directors Guild first, and established the new media template they desired. All they faced was downside (destruction of the Oscars) if they didn't do a deal, and they faced no downside from doing a deal.

Here, though, the studios face, in their calculation, a downside if they do a deal on SAG's terms: they would be "rewarding" a very intransigent union and would be fracturing the new media template they've fought so hard for. Unions that accepted the template -- the Directors Guild and the smaller AFTRA actors union -- would have been in effect punished for their more accommodating style of negotiations. Moreover, the AMPTP would be giving additional ground in a significantly worsened economy.

For those reasons, there's a significant possibility that the studios would accept destruction of the Oscars as a cost of doing business. There's also the possibility that some, or even many, A-listers, few of whom appear to support a strike, would cross SAG protest lines and attend the Oscars. This would reduce the "cost" to the studios, as well as fracture the union.

This is the formula for a long and bitter strike. I hope, if and when an authorization vote goes to the membership, that they reject it. There are several steps between now and a potential strike, so there's still hope that cooler heads will prevail. Unfortunately, there seem to be scarcely any at SAG, so the best hope is that the members resist the "educational campaign" SAG would wage, and vote against a strike if a ballot does go out.

Follow Jonathan Handel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jhandel

Comments

[BillSeward]

Please read last post to first!

Yet the "moderates" in the union advocate a policy that promotes the dissolution of the Screen Actors Guild to facilitate a merger with AFTRA, resulting in a third entity Unite For Strength's own leader, Ned Vaughn has said "doesn't care if it's called Uncle Joe Actor's Union." Somehow, I think the ghosts of SAG leaders past (Ralph Morgan, James Cagney - even Ronald Reagan before he changed his politics to suit his ambition), are spinning in their graves. The current economy notwithstanding, the truth is - it is entirely up to the AMPTP to resolve this impasse. They can either continue to push SAG into a corner until the rage against this shakedown of a contract boils over into a 75% strike authorization vote, or, they can exhibit "cooler heads" as Handel puts it (but he attacks SAG) and understand they must give on this contract: give SAG a deal that doesn't ask actors to accept a 50% pay cut, and accept an army of nonunion competition in its own contract. The AMPTP will be better off dealing with the fallout from the other unions who set the terrible precedent in their deals, than a SAG strike that would be disastrous for all. Middle-class SAG actors, no matter what side of this issue they are on, want the same things: to be treated with respect and paid a fair wage and fair residuals for their work. This contract is a slap in the face.

[ProudLiberalDan]

I for one am grateful that Unite For Strength is fighting to rescue SAG from Membership First's utterly unrealistic hostility to AFTRA. Merger is the only practical way forward. And AFTRA is not going to stop organizing actors because a bunch of Membership First blowhards throw a childish temper tantrum and stomp their feet.

No one likes this contract. But Membership First's way has failed. The fact that MF is still blaming everyone else but themselves, U4S, New York and the regional boards, only shows why they lost ground in the last election and will lose more ground in the next election.

The ones who are distancing the leadership from the membership aren't U4S and the regional boards, it's Membership First's unrealistic policies.

Accept with humility the results of the last SAG election and move forward.

[BillSeward]

Same argument, different day.
Read mine, then ProudLiberalDan's and tell me which one seems more reasoned and accurate.

[BillSeward]

"No one likes this contract. But Membership First's way has failed."

My favorite on-a-loop statement from anti-MF people. What it fails to acknowledge is, SAG, had it negotiated with AFTRA (which it didn't because AFTRA broke from SAG, not the other way around), or gone first, instead of last, or even been RUN by Unite For Strength if they had been elected in a landslide BEFORE the contract negotiations began (not well after and gaining a razor thin one vote majority on the national board, which has already proved weak-kneed and ineffective in it's efforts - don't take my word for it, Jonathan Handel said it after the plenary: "MF outmaneuvered UFS, the NY and Regional Boards") would STILL have been offered the EXACT SAME CONTRACT. The proof? NOBODY got a better deal! EVERYBODY (DGA, WGA, AFTRA) got essentially the EXACT SAME NEW MEDIA DEAL. So please, at least TRY to be logical, and understand, MF wasn't and isn't the party to be blamed here - the AMPTP is!

If UFS had been in charge, they'd HAVE to be taking the same stand right now to "get everything SAG wants - and more" - THEIR words on THEIR website, OR, they would have had to cave and take this terrible deal, and people would be calling for THEIR heads because they were weak and unwise negotiators. This is all back-seat driving from people who don't even know the gas from the brakes - just where the HORN IS.

[BillSeward]

Instead of that, the AMPTP has set a strange formula of unreasonably high "floors" - 15k per minute (average cost of original internet content? 2k per minute) that essentially render the vast majority of the content the AMPTP will be making, de facto nonunion. They also want to insert "free windows" of 17 to 24 days, where content can be rerun for free, without any residuals for the actors. This creates an unacceptable risk for actors, which the current leadership of SAG sees clearly, while others apparently, for whatever reason ("pattern bargaining" being broken, general fear of striking to achieve gains in the absence of any other option, etc.) do not. The offered contract is estimated by SAG to cut actors incomes in half, because the new media formula sets actors up for a nearly complete collapse in the current residual payments to actors. The nay-sayers pledge that "if that happens all the unions will link arms and strike in three years." Yet any unbiased look at the history of precedent (DVD) in SAG's contracts with the AMPTP tells a very different story - in Mr. Handel's own description:"precedents are like cockroach motels, once they check in they never check out."

[BillSeward]

The core principals this offer violates are two: "no nonunion work in the contract" (inserted ironically by past President Richard Masur, who now wants to disregard his own principals for the union) and, "fair payment for reuse of actor's work" (residuals). Both these principals are clearly violated in the offered contract - there is a potentially huge nonunion space asked for by the producers, where nonunion actors, (not to mention directors and writers) would flood the "experimental" original content made for the internet the AMPTP says it needs the "flexibility" to make. Translation? The producers are asking SAG to violate its own principles so they can set a precedent that vastly reduces their costs as they and we move further into the internet being the delivery system for all content. Instead, a simple percentage formula (which is essentially what SAG is asking for that is being touted by Handel as so "radical" ) that would tie actors directly into producers profit stream, without hampering their ability to coin money ("producers make 100 million on an internet project? SAG gets X%. producers make $10 on an internet project? SAG makes the exact same X% ")

[BillSeward]

This entire issue comes down to one question: should SAG accept a contract that violates it's own core principles? All the ancillary issues: the DGA's contract terms, AFTRA breaking from SAG and accepting essentially the same deal, the writer's strike and it's impact on Hollywood, etc. are overshadowed by a simple fact that Jonathan Handel has never acknowledged, nor expressed any sympathy for: why should SAG have to eat a bad contract - a disastrous contract - because of what other unions did or did not do, the state of the economy (which has gone from so-so to terrible over the course of this struggle) or SAG's own internal division, and the efforts of the "moderate" groups within SAG's government: Unite For Strength, the NY board, and the Regional boards (not all in those boards, but many), to promote an agenda of distancing the membership from the elected leadership of SAG at this critical juncture?