SAG actions irk AFTRA

Federation chairman responds to Monday rally

By DAVE MCNARY

With Hollywood on edge at the prospect of an actors strike, SAG's negotiating committee has been accused of dragging its feet at the bargaining table in order to wage war against the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists.

AFTRA negotiating committee chairman Matt Kimbrough leveled the charge against Screen Actors Guild's leaders on Tuesday, a day after the guild staged a raucous rally urging SAG members who also belong to AFTRA to vote down the latter's primetime deal. A SAG spokeswoman denied the allegations.

More industry backlash to SAG's aggressive campaigning against AFTRA is brewing, according to biz insiders.

"Since returning to the table two weeks ago, word is that the SAG negotiating committee in caucus spends far more time talking about AFTRA than about the issues embedded in theirs and management's respective proposals," Kimbrough said in a widely distributed message. "Instead of using every day it has this month to aggressively and constructively negotiate for its members, the SAG committee spends days in internal meetings, planning the 'Vote No!' campaign, staging rallies, putting staff on the marching line and spending our dues money trying to defeat it."

Kimbrough also recited a long litany of AFTRA complaints about SAG that led to AFTRA's decision to discontinue the longstanding policy of joint negotiations with SAG, citing "a yearlong AFTRA disparagement campaign."

SAG national exec director Doug Allen and president Alan Rosenberg delivered fiery speeches at Monday morning's rally, with both blaming AFTRA for SAG's lack of progress at negotiations and asserting that AFTRA's deal falls far short of being acceptable. The rally was attended by many members of the negotiating committee, and bargaining with the majors didn't resume until the afternoon.

Kimbrough's broadside was delivered on the 26th day of negotiations between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. SAG said it's focused on making a deal.

"Our committee is working hard every day and into the evenings," a guild spokeswoman said. "While the tentative AFTRA contract is on everyone's minds, we are focused on getting a contract. AFTRA is not a big topic in our caucus room. Actors are."

The SAG-AMPTP talks are expected to resume today.

SAG's insisted that major gaps remain on an array of issues including DVD and streaming residuals, force majeure language, online clip consent, jurisdiction over made-for-the-Internet productions and product integration. And SAG leaders assert that the terms of AFTRA's deal are problematic on several fronts and that the lack of compensation gains will make it impossible for middle-class actors to stay in the business, particularly with much of the delivery of features and TV migrating to digital platforms.

The AMPTP "told us, literally, they need us to unshackle them to liberate them, so that they can experiment in an unfettered way in this new-media space," Rosenberg said at Monday's rally. "What they've actually asked us to do is to pick up those shackles and put them on ourselves."

The multiplicity of SAG's unresolved deal points announced Monday is perplexing to outsiders, since Rosenberg had complained on May 6 that SAG was "within hours" of closing a deal with the AMPTP -- which had opted to recess the SAG talks to launch the twice-delayed AFTRA negotiations.

Despite the recent tough talk, SAG has yet to take the step of calling for a strike authorization vote, which would require 75% approval by those voting for the guild to go on strike.

SAG leaders are holding a general membership meeting tonight at the Harmony Gold Theater in Hollywood. SAG's contract expires June 30, though guild leaders have emphasized that they can continue to negotiate after that date without an immediate work stoppage.

Though there's no official news blackout, the majors have said little about SAG's proposals beyond strongly indicating that the AMPTP won't agree to a deal that's significantly better than its pacts with the Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America and AFTRA.

The AFTRA deal will go out to the union's 70,000 members next week, with results announced July 7. Kimbrough noted that his negotiating team had worked through the entire Memorial Day weekend and late into the night to reach the tentative pact on May 28 after 18 days of talks.

"It reached out to working members outside of its leadership to testify in their own words to management on the importance of an actor's fundamental right of consent over clips," he added. "More than once, the task seemed insurmountable. The AFTRA committee more than once was committed to walking away from the table if management refused to compromise, and yet the brave committee members determined that the only way to not fail was by trying to make a deal. In the end, a great deal was made. Better than recent years. Better than anyone expected."