AMPTP Leader and Long Time Adversary Nick Counter Dies
Nick Counter was a tough negotiator, an adversary on virtually every major contract for decades. He was at the AMPTP for 27 years, from its founding. But at the end of the day Counter was a decent man, who served as a trustee on the SAG and AFTRA pension and health plans as well as many others in the industry (14 of them, according to the AMPTP release).
Counter retired as head of the AMPTP in March, never telling anyone he was sick, though members of negotiating teams noted he didn’t look well. When asked, Nick Counter said that after retirement, he planned to do a lot of fishing. He died today, at age 69. No cause of death was given.
The AMPTP has a statement on its website, and a note from the Counter family.
Here’s the Los Angeles Times. Here’s Variety. The Wrap. The Hollywood Reporter.
Update: SAG has issued the following statement:
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6, 2009 — It is with sadness that we mark the passing of Screen Actors Guild’s longtime industry colleague, Nick Counter.
Screen Actors Guild President Ken Howard and National Executive Director David White issued the following statement: Nick Counter was a giant of labor relations whose passing will be mourned throughout the entertainment industry. His long tenure as head of the AMPTP was typified by reason, compassion and flashes of wry humor. Sitting across the table from him was never easy, but Nick was always able to balance the relentless pursuit of his bargaining objectives with an evident respect for actors and admiration for their unique contribution to the art and business of entertainment. His death is a tremendous loss and our hearts and sympathies go out to his wife Jackie, his family, and to our colleagues at the AMPTP.
Screen Actors Guild Senior Advisor John McGuire said, ” Throughout his years as the leader of the AMPTP, Nick brought to that organization balance, leadership and a commitment to finding ways to keep the Industry working for the benefit of everyone. SAG members are in his debt especially for his leadership in the SAG – Producers P&H Plans where his financial advice and guidance helped to protect and strengthen the health and pension benefits so vital to our members. Of equal weight was his involvement in the creation of the SAG Producers IACF fund that has provided vitally needed assistance to numerous SAG and Industry Affirmative Action and Assistance Programs. Nick truly set the bar high for everyone who strives to enhance our entertainment industry while caring for the employees who make it work. We have lost a true professional and a true friend.”
Former Screen Actors Guild Executive Director Ken Orsatti said, “Nick and I sat across the negotiating table from one another through six Screen Actors Guild television and theatrical contract negotiations from 1983 to 1998. Nick was a formidable adversary and he was always fully prepared, always creative, and above all, a consummate professional. He never lost sight of the goal of collective bargaining, which was to reach a fair agreement. For that entire period of time, both sides were able to achieve that goal without a work stoppage. Nick will be deeply missed.”
Counter defined the AMPTP when he was hired to resurrect it from the ashes in 1982. It had lay in ruins after MCA/Universal pulled out in 1975, followed by Paramount, MGM, United Artists, and Disney. Studios were suddenly on their own in negotiating with the creative guilds. After the three-month SAG strike of 1980, the studios decided they wanted to professionalize their labor relations. They abandoned the 50-year-old pre-1975 AMPTP model, in which one of the studio chiefs would wear the additional hat of AMPTP chief, and decided to bring in a full-time, professional negotiator. The candidate chosen was Counter.
Since 1982, Counter has set the tone and the rhythm of TV-Theatrical labor negotiations. There really is no frame of reference on how the AMPTP “ought” to be run going forward, because the only benchmark is how Counter ran it. (The only other data available would come from the previous era, when people like Lew Wasserman or his predecessors from other studios ran the AMPTP in addition to their regular studio positions.) As I have written elsewhere, I do not have a lot of confidence in the designated Counter replacement, Carol Lombardini, especially now that Counter is not available as a consultant. I foresee much turmoil in the AMPTP-Guild relationships in coming years.
VG
I dunno. The devil is entitled to an advocate, but I don’t have to like either of them. My genuine condolences to his family and friends on their loss, nonetheless.
Regrettably for both of us, my vivid memory of Counter is he and Patric Verrone sucking face in a passionate embrace on Letterman after the settlement of the WGA strike. I suppose it does credit to both men’s sense of humor, but I was more like “Oooh, I really didn’t need to see that!”
VG, do you have that much love for Counter, or do you know something about Lombardini that I don’t? I look at her Vitae and see she was basically his right hand from the beginning.
I suppose there is always the danger of the “new boss” having a burning desire to make their mark. . . on your backside. . .but other than that?
how stupid can you be to think that clip on letterman was actually either counter or verrone?
It’s a quiet Saturday in the Counter household. Everyone’s there, gathered just prior to Nick’s passing — those to whom he was husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather… or they arrived once the inevitable came to pass: he’s dying… or, he’s gone. Someone’s father is gone, someone’s grandfather.
In those quiet hours, as the family starts the work of its bereavement, Nick’s daughter does a little web surfing to note how her father’s passing has been remarked upon. Or his grandson, Jack does. After all, it’s how we comfort ourselves, is it not? To know that others were also affected by this loss, so huge those first few days?
The boy encounter’s George’s comment. Or Nick’s daughter does.
Now add the weight of these insensitive, cruel, unnecessary words to the weight of simple human grief.
A man with a conscience would wish, would deeply wish, to take back the words. A man who has no idea, none at all, what it means to lose someone you love will come up with a pathetic rationale.
Nothing is gained by George’s comment, but something important is lost: common decency. A moral center. Compassion.
Our shared humanity.
Yeah, and someday Chelsea Clinton in her grief will have to read one more time about the old man getting his knob polished by an intern in the whitehouse. If you’re going to be a public person, that’s the cost.
This isn’t the AMPTP site. The headline says it quite accurately –”and long time adversary”. Counter’s family (and I made a point of offering my condolences in his personal life) is luckier than Chelsea will be –it is much easier for them to avoid “long time adversaries” while they go through their grief process. If they should be so silly as to seek them out at this time, that’s on them.
Treating a public forum posting at a site that is a self-proclaimed adversary as if I just left a “I’m glad he’s DEAD” (and, btw, I’m not) card wedged in the door of the family home is, frankly, bull
It is my experience that some people do best in charge and some do best as second bananas. As a broad generalization, moving the second banana into the lead position rarely works out well.
Nick Counter’s retirement, and now his passing, comes at a time when the industry is at an unprecedented crossroads, due the the forces of technology, economics, and international competition. The closest parallel I can think of, and it is an inadequate one, is the era of the 1948 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Paramount which essentially ended the studio system (studios could no longer own theaters). What the AMPTP really needs is someone with the vision, statesmanship, and creativity to help navigate some extremely treacherous waters that will require major changes of thinking on both sides of the table. Someone steeped in yesterday’s thinking is not that person, in my view.
VG
I think the very concept of AMPTP is a huge roadblock in such an era as you describe. Creativity, genius, and compassion, when you are lucky to find them at all, happen in small quantities and generally can only provide leadership when they are allowed to act on their own to provide that leadership by example.
AMPTP by its very nature is a lowest-common-denominator entity inherently. If a spark of genius happens, it will quickly be stamped down ruthlessly from all sides before it has an actual chance to act.
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Ed. Comment – The AMPTP by its very nature is one thing and one thing only – a trade organization. It acts like a debate society and congress of the employers. It’s their way of multiplying leverage.
While many may view Nick as an ‘enemy’….because he was a tough negotiator….what did you expect him to do? Just give SAG everything they demanded?….Yes he was tough, but he did his job with respect for everyone at the table. One can only imagine where our contracts would be if someone else had been in that job for the past 27 years. We had successfully negotiated contracts – jointly with AFTRA – for all but the last year of Nick’s tenure….I say farewell to Nick and thanks for being a part of this industry. I say thanks and send condolences to his family.
The statement put out by SAG is appropriate, and I shudder to think of what the statement would have been if it were issued before the recent SAG elections.
I worked with Nick Counter for many years on the AFTRA health and retirement funds. I also was part of various negotiating committees that sat across from him and the AMPTP. Obviously we did not always agree but I was always impressed at his ability to keep the disparate elements of the AMPTP together, which made the negotiating process a great deal calmer. He was a gracious, dedicated and humorous man. He was wise and thoughtful. I was sorry when he stepped down as a trustee. I am very sorry for his passing. My prayers go out to the family.
I don’t note any inherent tension in what you wrote and what I wrote, ED. YMMV.
I wonder how many who’ve posted here have sat across from Counter in a negotiation. I have. He was a strong and deliberate, but a fair fighter. He had his obligations and goals, and we had ours.
His assignment was no more to lay down for our group as ours was to lay down for his group.
I’ve watched Counter in sparring matches with McGuire, and I can tell you this: he was a man who held a deep respect for our union , for what we do, and for our negotiator. But he was hired to do a job; he did it, and well.
God Bless Nick Counter’s family today. May they be comforted by His grace, and in the fact Counter had a life well lived.
May we all remember that the opponent is not always the enemy; sometimes he’s just the opponent.
V.
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Ed. Comment – Very well said. Nick was on the other side and he was a lawyer. He represented those who hired him, but never lost sight of the goal.
I think Sally Weaver put it well in a post on her blog:
Could not agree more.
V.
I am late to the discussion. I sat across the table from Nick twice during my presidency. I found him to be a smart capable negotiator. He was tough when he needed to be.
Personally, he was affable, kind and caring.
As president of SAG I understand the intricacies of internal politics. The board room. I understand them deeply. You think negotiating with people across the table was rough. Try negotiating with a fiery and divided board.
Make no mistake, Nick faced the same sort of division in his board room. His ability to bring his people to consensus was a gift.
The industry has suffered a horrible loss. I don’t think the ramifications will be felt for a while but there will be ramifications.
Nick was my adversary and friend and most importantly, he loved this business of show.
I, for one, will miss him and send my love and prayers to his family.
“A man with a conscience would wish, would deeply wish, to take back the words. A man who has no idea, none at all, what it means to lose someone you love will come up with a pathetic rationale.”
At the AFTRA Funds, I watched Counter occasionally quietly lose patience with other management trustees who had put the interests of their employers over the interest of the plan participants. A caucus or two and the fracture was resolved, often in his favor. He was not the sweetest man in the world, but he was smart and he was honest, and he valued the same qualities in others. Both plans would have been well served if all the management trustees followed his lead.
Melissa, this is why I supported your Presidency. May cooler heads prevail in the future.
Can you clarify your position, Geo? The way I’m reading your opinion as written, it seems like you don’t understand the AMPTP. It’s simply an organization that brings together similar companies for the purpose of dealing with other trade organizations as a single entity rather than each company dealing individually.
What do you mean by “AMPTP by its very nature is a lowest-common-denominator entity inherently”?