We don’t know much about what’s going on in the SAG and AMPTP talks but according to Daily Variety, the studio’s ‘final offer’ is now on the table. With SAG’s feature-primetime contract expiring, the majors have turned up the pressure by making the guild a final offer with increases valued at over $250 million over [...]

So, I did what any deep thinking actor would do…I hovered my pencil over the ballot and, in a ouija board like moment, I let the pencil decide on my vote. So don’t blame me, actors who support the AFTRA deal, my pencil said NO. Actually I spent time reading through the contract summary, spent [...]

I haven’t posted anything here recently about the ongoing ‘talks’ between SAG and the AMPTP because there really hasn’t been anything new to report. SAG is more or less vamping with the AMPTP while they work furiously to convince dual guild members like myself to vote down the AFTRA agreement. Yes, I received one of [...]

The kind of nastiness born of contract negotiations gone sour, a nastiness that tends to turn off the general public and give credence to those predisposed to anti-union sentiment, was brought to the streets of Hollywood yesterday with the SAG rally, ostensibly in support of the SAG negotiating team, but really in opposition to ratification [...]

June 8, 2008 Dear AFTRA Member: On Friday, your AFTRA National Board overwhelmingly approved the tentative agreement reached on May 28 with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new three-year primetime television contract (Exhibit A of the AFTRA Network Television Code). In the next week or so, you will be receiving [...]

If there were any doubt that SAG leadership would do anything to avoid asking SAG membership for a strike authorization vote, just look at the course the SAG and AMPTP negotiations are taking. A story in Saturday’s Daily Variety online lays out the scenario: In a move that will unnerve Hollywood, the longtime feud between [...]

As negotiations begin again with the AMPTP, SAG is using one tool at its disposal that might put some pressure on the producers organization to settle, a waiver available only to indie productions. By signing the SAG waiver the production company agrees to comply with the eventual deal hammered out with the AMPTP. This deal [...]

SAG and the AMPTP are scheduled to resume talks today which will presumably lead to a new theatrical contract for 120,000 SAG member actors. The pressure is on SAG now that AFTRA has struck their deal. Conventional wisdom in the entertainment press, not something you’d want to stake your life on, is that the talks [...]

Dear AFTRA Member: I am delighted to report that after 17 days of some of the hardest bargaining in which I’ve participated during the past decade as a union leader, your Primetime Negotiating Committee has reached a tentative agreement with the television producers that achieves higher pay and improved working conditions for AFTRA members working [...]

AFTRA and the AMPTP have announced agreement on a new primetime contract that, per Daily Variety, ” will ease — but not eliminate — the town’s fears of an actors strike.” The announcement of the AFTRA deal comes as SAG is scheduled to reconvene meetings with AMPTP this morning. Per Daily Variety: The deal includes [...]