Success of SAG strike key for DGA, prez sez

Shea endorses actors' work stoppage at org's meeting

By DAVE MCNARY

HOLLYWOOD — The head of the Directors Guild of America has given a strong endorsement of the three-week-old strike by union actors against advertisers, saying the work stoppage carries long-term impact for directors.

“This strike is a dress rehearsal for the critical disputes about fundamental issues relating to residuals and other economic rights that will arise in the next two years,” said DGA prexy Jack Shea in a speech at the organization’s annual meeting at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “Our residuals must continue to be protected and expanded as traditional media continue to grow and new media such as the Internet begin to develop.”

The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Actors struck the ad industry May 1 after negotiations had collapsed two weeks earlier.

Actors are seeking to expend the “pay per play” formula used on the six networks to cable, where actors current receive flat-fee buyouts. However, advertisers want to extend the cable flat-fee system to the networks.

Shea said broadcasters have been generating “huge” profits due to growth of the economy and higher ad rates. “It seems only reasonable that performers share in these profits,” he added. “The agencies’ proposals amount to nothing less than contract rollbacks that threaten the standard of living for SAG members.”

Shea’s speech underscored the widespread interest that the current strike has generated among other Hollywood unions. He noted SAG, AFTRA and DGA are already linked by participating in a management/union residuals study that will be included in upcoming contract negotiations.

“Should the advertisers succeed in rolling back residuals for SAG members by establishing a buy-out system, it may not bode well for the future of residual payments in other areas, not only for SAG, but for the DGA as well,” Shea said.

The DGA’s current contract expires in July, 2002, while the SAG/AFTRA basic film-TV contract expires in July, 2001.

Shea also reminded DGA members that they are forbidden from staging sympathy strikes, as are all other entertainment guilds, but told them to refuse work they would not ordinarily perform if a shoot is being struck.

Actors continued to picket commercial productions in Los Angeles in recent days, including shoots by Hyundai, Allstate Insurance and Pennzoil and staged a protest that drew several hundred on Friday to a Sears Roebuck in North Hollwyood.

The strikers also promised they will try disrupting a planned shoot in Malibu today by RSA USA, which incurred the wrath of the unions last week by running a mocking ad of a bare-breasted woman to highlight its move to open an office in South Africa.

RSA subsequently apologized but union leaders have asserted that the action did not go far enough.

The unions have also claimed that they have signed over 1,100 “interim agreements,” under which members can perform under the terms of the last offer the unions made to advertisers.

However, the unions have divulged the identities of only three signers, leading advertisers and producers to claim that no major companies have signed such deals and to insist that the industry has been able to match its pre-strike activity by using non-union actors and foreign locations.