One of Hollywood’s most engrossing soap operas will either end with a bang or a cliffhanger.
The nine-month battle within the Screen Actors Guild over its expired TV and film contract has brought us all of the ingredients for good drama: celebrities, lawsuits, a political coup, millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs hanging in the balance.
The battle will be over when SAG members vote on June 9 whether to ratify or refuse their latest contract with the AMPTP. The decision rests in the hands of 110,000 guild members who received ballots May 19.
Although SAG and AFTRA members overwhelmingly approved a new contract covering commercials on May 22, the political and emotional battle over the TV/theatrical pact is boiling over.
At a SAG town-hall meeting in L.A. on May 21, Ed Asner, former guild president and a member of the national board’s minority faction known as Membership First, reportedly likened the contract’s effect on SAG members to “taking the Jews out and shooting them.”
SAG president Alan Rosenberg, whose 2005 election was backed by Membership First, has loudly denounced the contract. He recently told the L.A. Times that the contract’s provisions “are just going to kill actors.”
And the moderates who took control of SAG’s national board this fall under the name Unite For Strength are just plain weary of the fighting that has been raging inside the guild since the 2000 commercials strike.
“All I want to do is get this damn contract passed,” Sam Freed, SAG’s 2nd vice president and president of the New York board, told TheWrap. “It’s not the infighting that’s prevented us from having a contract. The demise started when [former SAG national executive director] Doug Allen’s first move was to go against AFTRA. It was their acts alone that created the situation we’re in. Finally, we got political rule and we’ve moved on.”
Membership First and the guild, which promotes the moderate majority’s point of view, are now waging campaigns to persuade the members’ votes. The union has the funds and resources to reach out to its eligible voting members mulling over their ballots. Their site boasts a “statement of support” signed by 500 actors, including high-wattage names like Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Sally Field, Alec Baldwin and Rob Lowe.
Membership First has taken a more grassroots approach by staging daily protests, sending mass emails and writing blogs.
Both sides are circulating online videos featuring A-list and working actors touting their party’s line. Ironically, viral videos have become the chief weapon in a war over pay and residuals for content on the Internet.
In SAG’s corner, Hanks, Kate Walsh, Bruce Davison, J.K. Simmons, Corbin Bernsen, and dozens of rank-and-file Hollywood actors have appeared in “vote yes” videos. Their consensus is that the contract isn’t perfect, but as Hanks points out, “no contract ever is.”
But the two-year contract’s three percent wage increase and .5 percent increase in pension and health contributions will help assuage some financial burdens brought on by the ruined economy and runaway production.
