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AFTRA to SAG: Ready, Set, Negotiate! (And Better Make it Good)
With SAG's big negotiation day kickoff in place for April 15, AFTRA announced Wednesday that it will begin its own talks with the AMPTP April 28, giving SAG a two-week head start, says the Reporter.
The two groups broke up as a unified bargaining bloc over the weekend, leading to likely less leverage for each of them after a rocky on-again-off-again relationship. Contracts for both the actors' union and the federation are up June 30, which has put the pressure on leadership, and brought their differences into sharp relief in recent weeks.
Even the seeming cordiality of the two-week window, however, may be simply a calculated move to piggyback on SAG's work when AFTRA, the smaller of the two groups, sits down at the primetime bargaining table. AFTRA prez Roberta Reardon said, "In our view, our proposed schedule should allow SAG sufficient time to work out a good deal with the studios." She continued to say that, although AFTRA went its own way this year, it's "also concerned about the well-being of SAG members — some 44,000 of whom also belong to AFTRA."
Reardon is definitely spinning the schedule choice to appear as being in the interest of members, and it very well might be, if SAG sets a good precedent before it's AFTRA's turn. What do you think? Will the piggybacking be a drop in the bucket after all that's happened, is it a savvy move that could really have impact — or both? T.S. Eliot famously said that "April is the cruelest month." This year, for the actors in contract limbo, it might be. — Anna Dimond
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Apr 2, 2008 7:03 PM
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I am more than angry at the actors and SAG for thinking they need even more money. It is a slap in the face to those of us who pay their salaries. The more money they get, the higher advertising costs to cover it, therefore the higher the prices in stores passed onto us. It's pretty sickening to see that they want more when they make more in a week playing make believe than most of us will see in a year working a REAL job.
I have an idea, if they strike, fire them all, hire undiscovered new talent, most of whom will likely work for half of what these overblown crybabies make. That would save us all money.
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May 15, 2008 5:16 PM
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