Variety, THR Confirm Handel on Pilot Season: AFTRA 60+, SAG 1
Confirming the theme of Jonathan Handel’s post, Variety puts the AFTRA pilot total at 62, and doesn’t have a number for SAG, but says it’s “only a few.”
The Hollywood Reporter takes the total even higher, saying AFTRA has 64 pilots this season from the big five nets and SAG only one. THR notes that SAG Awards and nominations went to AFTRA shows and their casts.
Almost everything is being shot digital rather than film, according to the Variety story, so producers have a choice under which union’s contract to produce – the more expensive AFTRA Exhibit A or SAG’s TV-Theatrical. Surprisingly they’re overwhelmingly choosing the more expensive AFTRA contract.
Among the AFTRA total are 23 pilots from ABC.
Gosh, won’t this make ‘getting the actors out of AFTRA’ a lot harder?
thank you Mr. Rosenberg and Membership LAST, good job. were these people paid off to destroy the SAG pension plan?
And so much for AFTRA undercutting SAG.
“Surprisingly they’re overwhelmingly choosing the more expensive AFTRA contract.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise.
THR says “Studio and network sources indicated that, despite changes at the top of SAG, they’re going with AFTRA because it still is considered a safer alternative.
“They’ve had some instability, and instability creates uncertainty,” one insider said of SAG.”
Saying that SAG has had “some instability” is like saying the Titanic was a tad leaky.
At this point, I am willing to concede that the larger picture would suggest joint negotiations is the way to go, despite the possible tactical advantage of letting SAG lead by itself. SAG needs joint negotiations to show the industry it can play well with others, and that should be a higher priority right now. One or two more election cycles going to the moderates, and continued attention to the tasks at hand rather than internal politics, should eventually change public perception of SAG as the loose cannon, but they aren’t there now. Rome wasn’t rebuilt in a day.
No one expected AFTRA to try OVERcutting. Diabolical!
Bill,
I believe you’re not giving MeFirst enough credit here. Your assertion that MF served to weaken the SAG Pension plan, whether intentionally or not, is sadly true. But let’s not forget the ongoing Gang of Four lawsuit! How much have Alan, Anne-Marie, Kent and Diane’s ego-driven lawsuit cost our Guild? Last I read on this blog, it was over $120,000 and that was last year. That’s money out of the Guild’s coffers, critical funds from the contributions of rank and file members. That’s your dues money being wasted defending a frivolous, moot and stupid lawsuit. Has anyone heard of any revised numbers? Is it up to $200,000 yet? In her next Hollywood Callsheet column, I’d like to see Anne-Marie explain to the membership why she feels that hundreds of thousands of dollars of our dues money need to be WASTED in such a reckless manner over frivolity and ego. It’s anti-union and it’s indefensible.
Can we just get to merger, please? By merging all of our earnings, whether SAG or AFTRA, into the same pool, more performers will be protected by qualifying for pension credits and union health insurance. Isn’t that what we all want? I know it’s what I want. Through merger, we’ll truly be putting the membership first.
This also represents fairly strategic behavior by the producer community, as it dilutes the power of SAG and makes it easier to play one union off against the other. Since the 3% rate difference between SAG and AFTRA is nothing more than coffee money in an overall budget, there is no serious financial downside to the producers making such a decision.
VG
Just asking.
Why would AFTRA want to merge with SAG? When AFTRA has practically taken over all TV jurisdiction. Wouldn’t a merger mean Hollywood could exert greater influence over the “merged union”?
I thought there was a 3.5% not a “3% rate difference” between SAG and AFTRA.
I don’t know about that, VG, tho possibly that is the intent. A merger of equals is probably easier to pull off, so from that perspective it could lead to exactly what the producers would like to avoid.
The more new AFTRAites looking longingly at their old pension credits sitting in SAG and not being added to is going to keep ratcheting up the merger pressure both memberships will be exerting on their leaders. The more SAG members realizing that they will likely be looking at having to pay AFTRA initiation to get their next gig, likewise.
We should all thank MembershipFirst for making the eventual task of merger a little easier.
Wow, there really is no “T” in SAG after all.
“All principal performers and background actors’ rates will increase 3% effective upon ratification and 3.5% effective one year from ratification.”
Not that .5% would have any impact on the point I was making.
(And yes, I realize that there was a .5% bump in pension contribution. But I was talking about rates, and stated them correctly.)
VG
Where to begin, where to begin. . .
Why would AFTRA consider merger?
Maybe because AFTRA realizes what you patently refuse to; jurisdictional advantages are fluid and they don’t last. (You hear anyone from SAG still demanding proportional representation in joint negotiations? There’s a reason why that wasn’t such a good idea beyond the moment it was used, but that’s the MF way; never look to tomorrow when you can score points today.) I believe that AFTRA knows that it’s current success in TV pilots is probably temporary, and not, as some in SAG believe, a sign from God that they are the chosen union. This issue is probably an irrelevancy in their consideration of a merger.
Maybe because AFTRA realizes, like a majority of SAG does, that having a merged union increases bargaining clout, so while their members may benefit more than SAG members today, everyone benefits tomorrow from a merger.
Maybe because AFTRA realizes that merger is about more than jurisdiction over scripted broadcast drams. It’s about a single dues structure, a single operation, strength in organizing with a single voice, a dozen other things beyone the scope of your tunnel vision.
And maybe because AFTRA realizes that having one union with 100% of the jurisdiction ends having to respond to idiotic reasons to stay separate.
And Hollywood SHOULD have great influence in a merged union, on the type of work that is done by the local, because, as of now, a lot of work goes on in Hollywood.
I suspect, however, that in your typical myopia, you are confusing “Hollywood” with “Membership First,” and what is not likely to happen in a merged union is a scenario where a faction in one local is able to call the shots for the entire organization.
Mike, can you explain why Hollywood could exert greater influence over a “merged” union?
Can AMJ,Rosenberg and the brilliant Doug Allen pronounce BACKfire?
Or would a better phrase be “wha hoppen?” mouths agape of course.
Do you think Ralph’s Supermarket has enough brown paper bags for these bums to wear in public?
And it’s only 3% on those actors that are working the show at scale. At most, that is maybe a couple thousand dollars per episode on an hour drama with a lot of day players and almost nothing on most half-hours. These are certainly not figures that have any significant effect on the studios bottom line.
That’s my point in regard to the relative indifference of the producers to the financial terms of the contract they’re working under — the rate difference is not of great significance.
VG
Ask the editor.
I hit send accidentally, should read.
It has been mentioned before on this blog, that there is such a thing as an “AFTRA hardliner”. This people might not want to merge with SAG.
I am totally on board with your point and you made it well. I just thought it was worth emphasizing how insignificant the rate difference is.
I would like to add to the debate above, particularly to Mike’s question, but from a wider viewpoint as well.
It’s not just TV. Commercials, Industrials, Film. Actors working. If I get a job on an AFTRA show I’m thrilled because I’m working, not because it’s an AFTRA show. I’m not happy because it means I’m splitting my P&H between 2 unions as I work under BOTH jurisdictions, as do a lot of actors, and with the avalanche of AFTRA pilots even more actors will be splitting their P&H.
Merger is the only answer to the insanity of having 2 unions represent us for the same kind of work. How it can not be obvious to the naysayers that we are more powerful as one(and I include anyone who stands in front of a TV camera, or microphone, be it Howie Mandell, George Clooney, the local weathercaster, background, etc.) is beyond me. We all do the same job. We bring stories or news(stories), weather(stories), dramas, comedies, it’s all a fabric of our lives.
The cooler heads in both unions have always recognized this. We don’t look at each other and go, “Oh, you’re an AFTRA actor”, or “You’re a SAG actor.” We are all just actors, trying to make a living doing what we love(maybe some don’t). We have to have a guild or a union to protect our interests, but we should only have one. The onslaught of different medias and delivery systems and ways of telling a story is almost overwhelming, and actors are not divided into two or 3 or 4 camps. We have one big base camp with a lot of arms.
Never mind Mike. I see now that when you said “Hollywood” you meant “MembershipFirst”.
And I was just answering.
There are AFTRA members opposed to merger. They consider SAG to be harboring a cancerous growth in MF, and unless they are convinced that it has been excised, they want no part of it.
Sheffc
Mike’s Golden Equation:
Membership First = Hollywood = SAG = The best of all possible worlds for actors. Accept no substitutes.
“SAG needs joint negotiations to show the industry it can play well with others.”
Exactly. I think the Producers are making exactly this point by choosing to go with the AFTRA contract. They are rewarding the fact that AFTRA negotiated in good faith.
Wrong. The membership of AFTRA also consists of news reporters, talk show hosts, DJs, etc.
One prominent AFTRA National Board Member-still serving, wrote and published an essay to try to convince AFTRA members to vote NO on the last SAG-AFTRA merger. This AFTRA National Board Member also vote NO on the previous SAG-AFTRA merger in 1998.
To summarize his case, he felt that actors, not Hollywood but most actors reside in Hollywood and SAG has 120,000 members, would exert to much control, to the detriment of AFTRA’s other categories of workers. Some have suggested, not me, that the editor of this site, is that essay writer.
I’m surprised shefic and Fred are ignorant of this.
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Admin. Response: The above is posted in accord with our policy of allowing individuals to post responses that are misleading or which have errors in them. I’m surprised Mike is ignorant of the facts (or maybe just has it wrong.)
Somewhere we have a copy of that e-mail and I’ll try to search it out, but that Board Member has been consistently pro-merger, in spite of opposing last two merger attempts.
And the number of broadcasters and DJs in AFTRA is under 7% of the membership.
Mike, even if this were true, which doesn’t appear to be the case, but even if it were true, the fact that AFTRA overwhelmingly voted FOR Merger makes your point moot.
And just so we’re clear, are you equating one supposed AFTRA Board member with MembershipFirst?
Actually the G04 lawsuit cost is over $250,000
Ya, but at least SAG has filed a Memorandum of Costs in the trial court seeking to recover about $1,700 related to the recent appeal.
VG