The Screen Actors Guild is urging its 120,000 members to authorize a strike to obtain a better contract for shows streamed onto the Internet and royalty payments on DVDs. If 75% approve, it would disrupt the awards shows, such as the Oscars on February 22, 2009 and will also effect on line produced entertainment. However, 130 of Hollywood's prominent stars have joined together to oppose the strike vote authorization.
Strike Demands Based on Previous Contracts
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and members failed to anticipate the huge surge in the growth of cable TV and home video with the results that early contracts did not compensate them adequately. Although the Internet is yet to produce on line equivalents of leading TV shows, SAG does not want to make the same mistake if TV shows become an on line equivalent on the Internet. (Los Angeles Times, 12/3/08)
Demands in a New Contract
One of the issues dividing producers and actors is the future of digital entertainment. The question is how actors should be paid in the the digital era, especially their appearances on programs created for the Internet. SAG wants actors working on on line shows do so under a union contract, the same as when they appear on sitcoms or dramas. It feels that the internet represents the future and it wants actors to share in it.
The studio's respond that the SAG demands would price them out of the Internet market. They want to limit the contracts to shows that cost $15,000 a minute or more to produce or shows that use actors with credits to their name. The studios say that at this time the Internet and shows created for it does not yet make enough money to be profitable. They point out that companies such as Veoh, Revision3, 60Frames, Break.com and Mania Tv, all pioneers, are having to make layoffs because of the slowing economy.
Divisions Among SAG Members
On Tuesday, December 16, 2008, more than 130 Hollywood stars spoke out in opposing a strike. The list included Oscar winners George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Charlize Theron, Morgan Freeman and Sally Fields. In a letter circulated on the Internet, they registered their disapproval at the same time as SAG President Alan Rosenberg met with rank-and-file members in New York to seek support for a strike authorization.
The letter reflected the latest sign of sharp divisions within the 120,000-member union over tactics used by SAG's President and his allies to pressure for a better contract from major studios, especially for pay from Internet work. Meanwhile stars such as Mel Gibson and Martin Sheen support the strike although board members from SAG's New York division came out against it. Ballots will be mailed on January 2, 2009 and the results will be known on January 23. Seventy-five per cent of the returned ballots is required to give SAG's governing board the right to call a strike. (Reuters, 12/16/08)
Producers do not seem to be panicking as most are tentatively forging ahead with new projects. TV networks have yet to fashion contingency programming plans. However, a strike could shorten the current TV's season lineup by two months and give an early start to the summer's reality shows. (USA Today, 12/15/08)
For some, the timing of the strike is not economically sound. The industry is still recovering from a 14-week strike by screenwriters that only ended in February. It idled thousands of production workers and cost the local economy an estimated $3 billion. In an economy in which widespread layoffs and cutbacks are happening every day, it appears that the timing for this strike is inappropriate.
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