SAG Pauses to Consider Final Offer

Here we go again?? With the ripples of the 100-day Writers Strike still being felt, SAG (the Screen Actor's Guild) and the AMPTP let the contract between them expire early this morning. Thankfully, though, SAG isn't planning a strike or work stoppage at this time as both sides said they would continue to work under the old contract until a new agreement is reached. Full details from the AP:



Pause after Screen Actors Guild contract expires

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES - The contract between movie and TV actors and major Hollywood studios expired early Tuesday after the studios made a final offer and the Screen Actors Guild said it would take more than a day to study it.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said the offer was worth more than $250 million in additional compensation to members of the guild over the three years of the proposed contract.

The current pact expired at 12:01 a.m. PDT, but both sides said they would continue to work under the old contract after the deadline passed.

"In short, our final offer to SAG represents a final hope for avoiding further work stoppages and getting everyone back to work," the alliance said in a statement. The alliance said film production had been "virtually shut down" because of uncertainty about a deal.

The AMPTP will meet with guild representatives Wednesday afternoon to explain the offer, but will not entertain counterproposals, spokesman Jesse Hiestand said.

The guild said it would prepare a formal response once it analyzes the 43-page offer, but SAG's chief negotiator, executive director Doug Allen, immediately criticized it.

"This offer does not appear to address some key issues important to actors," he said in a statement.

For example, residual payments to actors for reruns of productions that were made only for the Internet were "incalculable," he said, adding it would "mean the beginning of the end of residuals."

The offer, made less than five months after the 100-day writers strike, was in line with deals cut with directors and writers guilds, as well as the tentative deal reached in May with the smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, both sides said.

The guild, however, has waged an all-out campaign against the AFTRA deal, which some 70,000 members were asked to ratify.

SAG, which represents 120,000 actors in movies, TV and other media, shares 44,000 dual members with AFTRA, which includes actors, singers, announcers and journalists.

Results are due July 8.


FULL ARTICLE HERE

PHOTO: A US film studio worker cycles on the Paramount Studios lot in front of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, CA. (AFP/File/Lucy Nicholson)