Stalemate Persists in SAG/AMPTP Talks

LOS ANGELES, July 18: The
Screen Actors Guild (SAG) has formally rejected the final offer from the
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), identifying new
media as the main sticking point between the two organizations.

“It’s not a good offer,”
states Doug Allen, the national executive director and chief negotiator at SAG,
in a letter to the union’s members, posted on its website. “It doesn’t address
enough of your priorities, particularly in new media.”

Allen maintains that in
the time since the Directors Guild of America reached a deal for the terms of
its new contract, “the landscape in digital media has dramatically shifted. The
seven global conglomerates that own the motion picture studios and television
networks are so confident in digital media prospects, that they are putting up
huge dollars to fast track their technology deals.”

Allen takes issue with
terms in the directors’ and writers’ contracts that “allow producers to make
new-media productions entirely non-union, at the producers’ option, for
projects below budgets of $15,000 per minute (effectively, almost all new-media
productions for the foreseeable future.)”

He continues: “Non-union
principal and background actors already compete for your jobs, especially
outside of New York and California. It makes no sense for SAG to agree to allow
the studios and networks to exacerbate our problem by giving them a pass to
produce entirely non-union under a SAG union contract.”

SAG’s leadership also
wants residuals for programs made for new media and streamed again on
ad-supported new-media platforms.

Allen concludes: “What
some among our employers—the major global media
conglomerates—insist on terming ‘new media’ it’s really ‘now media.’ It
is urgent, instant and immediate. That’s why achieving a fair compensation
formula now, in all forms of media, and confirming jurisdiction from the first
dollar of the production budget, are core objectives of the SAG national
negotiating committee… We want to make a deal as soon as possible, but we don’t
want to make a deal that hurts actors. No deal is better than a bad deal that
allows non-union productions by our employers and snuffs out residuals for
projects made for and rerun on new-media platforms. We don’t need to experiment
on the backs of actors. Our real world and practical experience has taught us
how to provide union benefits and protections in low-budget productions.
Management’s resistance is frustrating but we have to be patient. The stakes are
too high to concede jurisdiction and residuals for programs made for new media.
That future is now and, if we ignore it, it will pass actors by and this
generation and future generations of actors will never recover.”

In its response, the AMPTP
argues that SAG is not taking into account “the truly seismic shifts we have
all seen over the last six months in the rapidly deteriorating economy, the
worsening credit crisis and the skyrocketing price of energy. Even in the midst
of these severe economic problems for our country and our industry, AMPTP has
made SAG a good and fair offer, with more than $250 million in increased
compensation, groundbreaking new-media rights and pension and health
protections that most Americans would envy.”

Justifying its proposal to
SAG, AMPTP says it offered to extend SAG jurisdiction to original new-media
production, “including low-budget programs that employ a single ‘covered
actor.’ The AMPTP's final offer also guarantees residuals of 3.6 percent of
distributor's gross when original new-media productions are reused on consumer
pay platforms, and terms to increase pay and residuals if the program is
eventually exhibited theatrically or on television. These terms are a major
advancement for SAG members compared to the existing contract terms.”

The new contract also, the
AMPTP says, establishes “first-ever residuals for ad-supported streaming, made
for new-media programs and reuse of clips in new media,” as well as doubling
the residual rate for permanent downloads. “Not a single one of these rights
exists under the contract that expired on June 30—a contract that SAG
members now must work under because of the failure of SAG negotiators to make a
deal.”

—By Mansha Daswani