1 hour, 12 minutes ago
In talks that reached a stalemate this month, negotiators
for the Screen Actors Guild, representing 120,000 performers,
have demanded that work distributed on the Internet be covered
by a SAG contract, and late on Saturday SAG's national board
voted 68-0 in favor of a resolution reaffirming that idea.
"We have been telling the industry how important it is for
all new media productions under our contract to be done union,
and how important residuals (fees) for made-for new media
programming are when programs are re-run on new media," SAG
National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Doug Allen,
said in a statement.
"I am very pleased that our National Board today
unanimously confirmed these essential principles in support of
our National Negotiating Committee," Allen said.
SAG's National Board of Directors adopted the resolution
stating a "core principle" of the guild is that "no non-union
work shall be authorized to be done under any (SAG) agreement
and that all work under a (SAG) contract, regardless of budget
level, shall receive fair compensation when reused."
The statement said the resolution "represents guidance"
from the National Board to the contract negotiators.
Those negotiators came under fire last week when a rival
faction within SAG launched a campaign to wrest control from
leaders they blame for the stalemated contract talks.
A bloc of SAG members calling itself Unite for Strength
unveiled a slate of candidates who will seek to gain a majority
on the national governing board in elections set for September
18.
Industry watchers said the challenge meant the roughly
four-week-old standoff between the union and studios would drag
on, and the board's vote strengthened that idea.
The old SAG contract expired hours after the studios,
represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television
Producers, presented SAG with a "final" offer on June 30. SAG
countered with a new proposal on July 10, but the studios
refused to budge, insisting they were done negotiating.
Late Saturday, the AMPTP issued a statement saying the
refusal of SAG's negotiators to accept AMPTP's final offer
means "actors will continue to work indefinitely under the
expired contract."
A SAG spokeswoman said there were no new developments on
Sunday, while the AMPTP posted on its Web site a tabulation of
wages lost by SAG members because they have not taken the
AMPTP's final offer, which calls for some wage increases.
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
0 comments:
Post a Comment