NBA players hand thesps strike assist

Lockout battle-tested athletes show solidarity

By DAVE MCNARY

Striking actors have scored a second public-relations victory as their 18-day-old work stoppage received official backing from the National Basketball Assn. players union.

Union chief Billy Hunter has issued a directive to the organization’s 400 members to refuse to shoot endorsements for the duration of the strike by union actors against advertisers. The players union, which went through a lockout that eliminated nearly half of the 1998-99 season, told its members that the only exceptions would be shoots taking place under an interim agreement with the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists.

“Our players understand, in light of the lockout, the importance of showing solidarity with other unions,” said Dan Wasserman, spokesman for the National Basketball Players Assn. He also said Atlanta Hawks center Dikembe Mutombo, a member of the union’s executive committee, had recently turned down a six-figure deal to shoot an endorsement because of the strike.

The SAG/AFTRA strike has already been endorsed by the Major League Baseball players union. Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and golfer Tiger Woods refused to shoot spots during the first week of the strike.

Lots of leverage

The absence of celebrities such as athletes represent a key piece of leverage for SAG and AFTRA in pressuring advertisers to return to bargaining. Talks between the two sides collapsed April 14, and no new talks have been scheduled.

The Assn. of National Advertisers held members-only meetings Tuesday in Chicago and Wednesday in Hollywood, at Raleigh Studios. “We have not had a single member say they’re reducing business because of the strike,” said ANA spokesman Dan Jaffe. “There’s a great deal of solidarity.”

For their part, the unions picketed an AT&T shoot in Hollywood and the fall-schedule announcements of CBS and Pax networks in New York. They also launched a “Commerce Without Conscience” slogan Wednesday, citing recent double-digit gains in upfront sales of ads in network, cable and syndication.

“It would now be foolish for the industry to continue to maintain that they simply can’t afford to provide actors with a reasonable share of profits their performances in radio and TV commercials helped to create,” SAG president William Daniels said.