Hollywood studios and the Screen
Actors Guild on Wednesday held their third meeting since the
studios declared an end to contract negotiations, but the two
sides parted company again without any public comment.
The uncertain outcome of the session came as the stalemate
between SAG and the studios' bargaining agent, the Alliance of
Motion Picture and Television Producers, dragged into its third
week with no final act in sight.
"A small group from AMPTP and SAG met today. Both parties
agreed that the contents of the meeting should be kept
private," the producers alliance said in a terse statement,
adding that no further meetings were scheduled.
A corresponding message from SAG likewise said both sides
agreed to keep their interaction confidential, adding only that
the meeting lasted for two hours.
The contract at issue covers the work of 120,000 SAG
members in prime-time TV and movies, an industry still reeling
from a 14-week screenwriters strike that ended in February. A
strike by the actors is widely seen as unlikely, for now.
The old SAG contract expired hours after the studios
presented the union with their "final" offer as a
take-it-or-leave-it proposition on June 30.
The parties met again on July 2 for what they described as
a question-and-answer session about the studios' 43-page
proposal, which management says is worth more than $250 million
in additional compensation to actors over three years.
SAG then delivered a counteroffer during a four-hour
meeting on July 10 that ended with the studios refusing to give
any ground and insisting that SAG submit the industry's latest
proposal to union members for a vote.
SAG leaders have so far been unwilling to do so, saying the
studios' offer -- mirroring terms endorsed July 8 by the
smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in
a separate TV-only contract -- falls short in several areas.
SAG, for example, has sought higher residual payments for
actors from DVD sales and to extend its contract coverage to
all made-for-Internet programming, even low-budget productions
exempted under the AFTRA deal that SAG opposed.
The studios said on Tuesday that SAG leaders requested the
latest meeting without revealing their intentions in advance.
The AMPTP insisted then that it would attend "solely for the
purposes of listening to whatever SAG has to say."
So far, SAG leaders have played down the likelihood of
calling a strike, a move that would require a 75 percent vote
by members. Many industry watchers doubt SAG could muster the
support needed in light of lingering fatigue from the recent
writers' work stoppage and growing economic uncertainty.
Much of the entertainment industry already has slipped into
a de facto strike mode, as major studios have halted most of
their film productions to avoid costly labor disruptions. But
according to Daily Variety, studios are now considering moving
forward with new film projects before a settlement is reached.
For the time being, actors are working under the terms of
their old contract.
Reuters/Nielsen
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