It seems that everyone is now apologizing for the lame coverage of the SAG non-strike. Here's my semi-apology...
Nothing has changed since I wrote about this on February 19.
Listening to the painfully unmoderated and unfocused back and forth between the SAG and AFTRA toppers on KCRW yesterday (embedded below) was to hear pretty much the same old song & dance, though I have to admit that it clarified my sense even more greatly that the AFTRA side really has no defense. When Ms Reardon keeps pushing the "they tried to stop our vote!" as her key issue and fails to debate the real issues, she has already lost my support.
There was a moment when it seemed that AFTRA’s plowing ahead on its own might radicalize SAG, but by focusing on trying to turn – impossibly – the AFTRA vote, SAG leadership shifted focus away from AFTRA’s encroachment by becoming the perceived aggressor.
So now, SAG is screwed. Going out on their own – every other key union has a multi-year deal done - is a near-impossibility. They have no central issue to sell as worthy of shutting the town down again.
But the core issue between SAG and AFTRA remains. AFTRA’s scripted drama/comedy deals are inferior to what SAG has offered… for the actors who work under them. Residuals, pension, and Health & Welfare are all real issues. AFTRA is using the shift to tape from film to eat an increasing piece of the pie for shows with actors performing drama and comedy on camera from a script, a jurisdiction that was never really meant to be theirs. And because their deals are cheaper for the studios, they want to work under AFTRA whenever they can.
SAG has its own real problems as well. The dangerous position of the acting middle class is real and not primarily an AFTRA issue.
All the industry unions have a similar problem. The vast majority of the money their memberships are taking out of films and television shows are not coming out under union contracts. Real hyphenates do exist. But for the most part, a job that is not covered by any of the unions, producer, is the tool that actors and writers use to get paid the real money, particularly on the back end. If the unions tried to force real compliance, the top names might split off and that would lead to non-union projects which would, it seems, lead to the end of the unions as we know them.
On top of that, the agencies and managers have been set free to plunder major amounts out of productions because they control the talent, often making more than the talent for their limited troubles. And talent that doesn’t drive deals? No one cares. They get paid less and less, treated worse and worse, and still, they are happy to be working… beats digging a ditch, right?
Unions can be their own nightmarish high schools. But my sense is that the middle class actors are seeing the union’s ability – and in some cases, willingness - to work in their best interests slipping away. And without the cover of the union, we might as well be back to the contract player days, with only the biggest stars allowed to guide their own lives and careers. And you know, some actors would really benefit from that. But it’s a step down from where they have been with SAG. And they don’t want to go there.
Rough times.
Still, the AFTRA incursion is not a passing issue. The vast majority of actors working on the carefully-but-surely-flawed kind of shows are still under SAG contracts… over 95%. But AFTRA Creep continues. And like runaway production, it’s about choices. Actors, for the most part, don’t have a lot of choice… if they want to work. A few do. Most don’t. The Money does have choices. And logically, they will continue to make those choices to their own benefit. If working under AFTRA instead of SAG saves 2% or 4% on a budget line and there is no downside to working under that contract or shooting on HD Video instead of Film, why not?
On some level, I believe completely in open competition. What spins my head on this issue us that AFTRA seems to be talking out of both sides of its leadership mouth. They keep screaming that SAG is unfairly attacking them, but never seems to make a real argument that their contract, which has emasculated the negotiations by SAG, is the best one possible for actors who work in front of the camera on television. And on cable, which is where AFTRA is making its main push for deals, Roberta Reardon said in this KCRW interview that AFTRA doesn’t have or seek a basic cable agreement, but that it will negotiate deals on a show-by-show basis. So… where is the strength of the union?
Still… everyone seems to understand that a SAG strike is highly unlikely. And that SAG will not get anything close to what they aspired to when they started, when they supported WGA, etc. So why write about it? It’s depressing.
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/07/still_no_strike.html