Actors ratify 2-year Hollywood movie, TV contract

[June 10, 2009]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- After a year of nasty infighting, members of the Screen Actors Guild decided by a large margin that the show must go on.

The Guild said Tuesday that 78 percent of voting members decided to ratify a two-year contract covering movies and prime-time TV shows made by the major Hollywood studios.

It was a show of unity after dragged-out negotiations left the Guild further behind than when it started talks in April last year. And it repudiated the strategy of replaced union leaders who had once called for a strike.

"At least for a period, I think what this vote represents is the membership's desire to move on," said David White, who was installed as the Guild's interim national executive director after a boardroom coup by moderates in January.

About 110,000 SAG members were sent ballots and more than 35 percent cast votes.

The new contract immediately raises actors' minimum pay by 3 percent and grants another 3.5 percent raise in the second year of the deal, which along with better pension benefits and some Internet compensation gives them $105 million in overall gains, the union said.

But it is no better than a deal signed a year ago by a smaller actors union, AFTRA, nor did it improve upon the Internet terms that other unions already accepted. Negotiators that were replaced in January had sought more lucrative Web compensation.

SAG fought alone for better terms than were secured by writers, directors and AFTRA. The battle ended up hurting it as TV studios like ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS sent most of their new work AFTRA's way. SAG maintains exclusive jurisdiction over feature films.

The deal comes nearly a year after the last contract expired, meaning SAG actors lost out on the first year of proposed raises that the studios estimated totaled nearly $80 million.

"We were behind the eight ball to some extent with the amount of time we had been working without a contract at all," said Adam Arkin, an actor who was elected to the Guild's board last fall. "Whatever gains are to be made in the future are going to have to start with us not going down the road of this level of fracture within the community of SAG."

The new contract took effect after midnight and expires on June 30, 2011, about the same time as those of other unions, allowing SAG to maintain the future threat of a joint strike. That expiration date had been one of the final points of contention, but studio heads appeared to give in when faced with the prospect of a neverending bargaining process in which SAG would be out of sync with other unions.

The past year's internal struggles came to a head in January when recently elected moderates moved to oust the Guild's national executive director, Doug Allen, and muzzle President Alan Rosenberg. Both had considered a strike vote a key negotiating tool but never could muster the support to send one out.

Many board members opposed the strike push as the economy dipped further into recession. Movie studios cut back on their film slate and laid off staff, while TV producers were finally returning to life after a strike by writers last year shut down much of Hollywood for 100 days.

Most actors weren't ready for more turmoil and joblessness.

After Allen and Rosenberg were removed as negotiators, White worked to salvage a deal in backdoor talks with executives such as Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger and Warner Bros. Chief Executive Barry Meyer. Warner Bros. is a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.

A tentative deal was reached in April, about a year after talks first began.

White said work on the next round of negotiations would begin immediately, starting with enforcing contract terms that give actors the right to see studio finances on Web productions.

He added that he would also begin to repair damaged relations with other unions. As an executive who is appointed by the board, White has largely steered clear of the political battles that have torn SAG apart.

SAG and AFTRA split acrimoniously last year and decided to negotiate deals with the studios separately for the first time in three decades.

Rosenberg acknowledged Tuesday that actors did not agree with his executive team's hard stance. But he said he would run for a third term as president in the fall and hope to be part of the contract talks in two years.

"Our point of view was rejected for now. I don't think it was because they said necessarily we're wrong," he said. "You need solidarity. We weren't able to build that this time."

Every major segment of SAG voted for the deal, with 71 percent of voting Hollywood actors, 86 percent in New York and 89 percent in other U.S. regions voting in favor.

Sam Freed, an actor and president of the Guild's New York division, said the vote showed that actors disagreed with Rosenberg's approach even in his power base in Hollywood.

"The way that he perceived it was declined by 71 percent of the Hollywood membership. And that's all that needs to be said," Freed said.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the coalition of major studios, on Tuesday called the ratification "good news for the entertainment industry." The directors' guild and AFTRA also issued congratulatory statements.

[Associated Press; By RYAN NAKASHIMA]

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