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SAG dispute puts actors in LA LA land

Kate Walsh, Amy Brenneman (both of Private Practice) Doug Savant (Desperate Housewives, pictured) and Adam Arkin (Chicago Hope) are hoping to win seats in the September elections on the Screen Actors Guild board. They are part of a splinter group, Unite for Strength, looking to merge all actors with the smaller union, AFTRA, which has made agreements with the studios under the AMPTP.

But on the weekend the union’s national board passed a resolution 68-0 to decline the last AMPTP offer. That means the conflict drags on.

“It is a core principle of Screen Actors Guild: That no non-union work shall be authorized to be done under any Screen Actors Guild agreement and; That all work under a Screen Actors Guild contract, regardless of budget level, shall receive fair compensation when reused,” the resolution stated.

The resolution showed the first signs of solidarity among the fragmented national board since negotiations started in April. Board members from SAG’s Hollywood division, led by another faction MembershipFirst, have locked horns with board members in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere regarding the current state of negotiations as well as its failed attempt to get members of both SAG and AFTRA to vote down AFTRA’s primetime/TV contract.

But one member said people should not read into the unanimous resolution as meaning that the bad blood between the Hollywood division and the rest of the board has lapsed.

In a statement, the AMPTP said, SAG’s refusal “means that actors will continue to work indefinitely under the expired contract – an old contract that contains non of the $250 million in additional compensation provided by AMPTP’s final offer, and an old contract that provides none of the new media rights and residuals that other Hollywood Guild members have now been enjoying for months.

With negotiations in limbo, Hollywood is at a virtual standstill. While TV productions continue, the major studios do not have many projects filming, in the event that SAG’s negotiating committee decides to take a strike vote and members vote to walk out.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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