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Employees of Southern California Public Radio are joining Hollywood's largest union. About 65 reporters, producers, show hosts and news anchors of the Pasadena-based KPCC have voted to join SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 165,000 actors, recording artists, talk show hosts and journalists. Southern California Public Radio,  a nonprofit organization that is part of American Public Media, operates KPCC-FM (89.3) in Los Angeles and Orange counties, KUOR-FM (89.1) in the Inland Empire and KVLA-FM (90.3)

After seven weeks of negotiations, SAG-AFTRA and a group representing advertisers said they reached a deal on new contracts covering actors and other performers who work in television and radio commercials. But neither group wanted to broadcast the details of the deal. SAG-AFTRA, which has more than 165,000 members, and the Joint Policy Committee representing the advertising industry said Saturday morning they reached an agreement on new tentative contracts, which is subject to approval by the SAG-AFTRA national board later this month.

SAG-AFTRA has reached a tentative agreement with the major record labels on a first-ever industrywide contract to cover dancers and performers who work on music videos. The three-year deal with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Walt Disney Co. was reached Friday morning. The negotiations had begun Wednesday. "Our negotiations were productive, resulting in solid gains for SAG-AFTRA members," SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director David White said.

Actors hoping for a new commercials contract will have to wait a little longer. Negotiators with SAG-AFTRA and the Joint Policy Committee representing the advertising industry have agreed to extend for one week the agreements covering actors who work in television and radio. The agreements are set to expire Sunday. Under the extension, the parties have agreed that the contracts will remain in effect through April 7, giving the parties more time to negotiate new agreements. "Both parties look forward to continued productive negotiations under the mutually agreed upon and previously announced media blackout still in effect," the groups said in a statement.

The overwhelming vote by union members to merge the two top actors' guilds made me think I was wrong to side with the GOP on the issue of railway and airline unions. Republicans on Capitol Hill, particularly those in the House, are eager to overturn the National Mediation Board's reinterpretation of a key provision of a federal law governing railroad and airline workers. The law states that a majority of any craft or class of workers has the right to form a union, and the board had long considered "majority" to mean more than half of the workers eligible to vote on the issue.

A KTLA-TV sports reporter and weekend news anchor has lodged an unfair labor practice complaint against Hollywood's largest entertainment union. In a filing with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, Rebecca Hall contends that SAG-AFTRA demanded she become a full union member and pay excessive initiation fees and union dues if she wanted to keep working at KTLA, which is owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Los Angeles Times....

Hollywood's two actors unions will begin nine days of intensive talks Saturday toward merging their two organizations, in part to strengthen their clout at the bargaining table. Representatives of the Group for One Union, which comprises elected officers from the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, will begin a series of meetings at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel to hash out a merger agreement that would include a proposed constitution and dues payments for a combined union.

Michigan, already struggling to bolster a once-thriving film business, is getting the cold shoulder from Hollywood's biggest union. SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 165,000 actors, recording artists and other performers, blasted bills passed by the Michigan House and Senate on Thursday that would make Michigan a so-called "right-to-work" state.  In right-to-work states, those who aren't members of the union can work under union contracts without...

Financial institutions typically don't ask customers to take their money elsewhere. But the AFTRA-SAG Federal Credit Union, which is not affiliated with the actors unions but serves many of their members, took the unusual step this week of asking well-heeled depositors to consider withdrawing some of their funds. "Due to the unusual economic and market conditions, we are asking you, as a select group of our large depositors, to move a portion of your funds to another institution," the credit union said in a letter mailed out this week.

Directors of Hollywood's two main performers unions took their first major step Saturday toward meshing the two groups under a new umbrella labor organization that would represent actors, broadcasters and recording artists. In a nationwide videoconference meeting, the boards of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists approved a broad set of principles aimed at folding the two labor groups into a new 150,000-member union.

In a nearly 30-year television career, Frank Crim has appeared in more than 150 commercials, pitching Honda SUVs, Jack in the Box hamburgers, Allstate insurance, and Capital One credit cards. The Oklahoma City native has played a plumber, a trash collector, a chef, a cab driver and a demon. But lately Crim is having to book more jobs to make the same money he did a decade ago. "I still don't make enough money to buy a house," said Crim, who makes about $60,000 a year and shares an apartment in the San Fernando Valley.

A KTLA-TV sports reporter and weekend news anchor has lodged an unfair labor practice complaint against Hollywood's largest entertainment union. In a filing with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, Rebecca Hall contends that SAG-AFTRA demanded she become a full union member and pay excessive initiation fees and union dues if she wanted to keep working at KTLA, which is owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Los Angeles Times....

Employees of Southern California Public Radio are joining Hollywood's largest union. About 65 reporters, producers, show hosts and news anchors of the Pasadena-based KPCC have voted to join SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 165,000 actors, recording artists, talk show hosts and journalists. Southern California Public Radio,  a nonprofit organization that is part of American Public Media, operates KPCC-FM (89.3) in Los Angeles and Orange counties, KUOR-FM (89.1) in the Inland Empire and KVLA-FM (90.3)

Michigan, already struggling to bolster a once-thriving film business, is getting the cold shoulder from Hollywood's biggest union. SAG-AFTRA, which represents more than 165,000 actors, recording artists and other performers, blasted bills passed by the Michigan House and Senate on Thursday that would make Michigan a so-called "right-to-work" state.  In right-to-work states, those who aren't members of the union can work under union contracts without...

  SAG-AFTRA, Hollywood's largest entertainment union, is thinning down. The national board of the 165,000-member union, formed earlier this year in the merger between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, voted Sunday to reduce the number of locals to 25, down from 33. The locals represent members across the country and elect directors who serve on the SAG-AFTRA national board. The reduction is part of the process of integrating the two unions and reflects an effort to avoid duplication of regional offices representing the formerly separate unions that merged in March.  SAG-AFTRA officials did not say which offices might close as a result of the consolidation.

SAG-AFTRA is launching Health Mart, a website to make it easier for actors and agents who don't qualify for the union's health insurance to shop for benefits. The website will give actors and franchise agents (those recognized by the union) access to a multitude of healthcare options with major insurers. The service is being offered as part of an agreement between the union and Marsh U.S. Consumer, a broker and administrator of insurance and membership programs. The website will allow actors and agents to tap into competitive rates for health insurance policies, a long-standing concern among union members, the vast majority of whom don't earn enough to qualify for insurance coverage.

Hollywood's squabbling actors unions appear to be ready to bury the hatchet. It's been almost two years since the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists broke off its 27-year bargaining pact with the Screen Actors Guild, with whom it waged turf battles, including a tiff over the CBS soap "The Bold and the Beautiful." But Sunday, a key committee of AFTRA is expected to recommend to its national board that the union resume joint bargaining with SAG for prime-time TV contracts, people familiar with the situation said.

John C. Hall Jr. of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists says he doesn't want a strike against the networks. It can be said that picketing is not his union's penchant anyway. Its last walkout, lasting 13 days, was in 1967. But strikes are always possible.

Benh Zeitlin's dreamlike paean to the human spirit, "Beasts of the Southern Wild," will likely be picking up plenty of awards in the coming months, but honors from the Screen Actors Guild apparently will not be among them. Because "Beasts" was made without a SAG-AFTRA union agreement, it is ineligible for SAG Awards nominations. The guild has given the movie's distributor, Fox Searchlight, until Oct. 25 to retroactively bring it under compliance with a union agreement, which would involve paying the performers the difference between their initial pay rate while shooting and the miniumum due had they been under a contract.

A group of actors including Ed Asner is alleging that SAG-AFTRA, the largest entertainment union in Hollywood, has failed to properly account for foreign royalty payments owed to them. "As SAG-AFTRA publicly joined in the festivities honoring Labor Day, we the undersigned were quite mindful that tens of thousands of U.S. actors have had their residuals and foreign levies withheld if not converted unlawfully by SAG and AFTRA for well in excess of a decade," said the Sept. 11 letter addressed to union board members.