SAG's campaign to oppose AFTRA's contract raises concerns
When the Hollywood studios recently crafted a new contract with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, they were adapting an old script that had played well for them before.
A pact with directors last year paved the way for a similar settlement with writers that ended a 100-day strike last winter. Many hoped it would also lead to avoiding an actors strike this summer.
But if that was the studios' playbook, the Screen Actors Guild doesn't appear to be following it. In recent weeks many in Hollywood have become increasingly jittery that the powerful actors union and the studios will not have negotiated a new agreement when the current one expires June 30, resulting in actors working without a contract or -- worse -- a second and much more devastating entertainment industry strike this year.
The first sign of real trouble appeared last week when SAG's leaders decided to mount a risky campaign to oppose its smaller sister union's contract, which it contended sells actors short.
Animating the attack is a longtime feud over which union can lay claim to represent the casts of TV shows. The conflict is further aggravated by an upstairs/downstairs class rivalry in which the Hollywood-centric SAG -- which covers all movies and most of prime-time TV -- often disparages the less glamorous AFTRA, whose members also include radio announcers and actors who work in daytime television.
SAG's effort to torpedo AFTRA's contract, however, has raised new questions about the guild's own strategy for negotiating a deal on behalf of its 122,000 members. The sparring between the two unions has emerged as a major distraction in talks between studios and SAG, which have slowed to a crawl. They broke off after only 2 1/2 hours Friday.
SAG's campaign -- which targets 44,000 members who belong to both unions -- has further roiled the famously fractious union, including the guild's own negotiating committee.
Committee members from New York and other regional branches openly criticized their own leaders' plans to defeat the AFTRA accord, calling it a waste of guild money and likely to fail.
The campaign could cost as much as $150,000.
"I've never heard of a dual membership situation where one union is saying to vote down the contract of another," said Al Latham, a Los Angeles labor attorney and adjunct faculty member at USC's law school. "This is novel."
But vocal and public disagreement is a time-honored tradition at SAG.
