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 [...]

The latest email blast to SAG members from Alan Rosenberg, SAG President: June 8, 2008 Dear Members, Screen Actors Guild’s negotiating committee continued its bargaining with the AMPTP this past week. We continue to negotiate for a new contract that will be fair for actors and we are not done yet as there are still [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

That seems to be the feeling in the film industry trades as talks between the two parties continued over the weekend and even over the Memorial holiday. The letter sent from AFTRA to members (published here in a previous post) struck an optimistic tone and that tone, combined with a lot of wishful thinking has [...]