Actors unions and studios work overtime on contract talks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fi-ct-actors-20101107,0,1375184.story

The aim is to avoid the kind of standoff that disrupted production two years ago.

By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times

Negotiators for Hollywood's actors unions and the major studios worked past their deadline and into the night Saturday in an eleventh-hour effort to reach an early agreement on a new three-year labor contract.

The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists began negotiations on Sept. 27, nearly nine months before the current film and TV contract expires. SAG has 125,000 members. Its sister union, AFTRA, has 70,000.

Both sides had agreed to early negotiations to avoid a repeat of what happened two years ago, when SAG and the studios were locked in a standoff that disrupted film and television production and caused actors to work without a contract for about a year.

SAG is now led by a coalition of moderates, who fired former Executive Director Doug Allen last year and replaced him with David White, a former SAG general counsel who has taken a less confrontational approach in his dealings with the studios.

Despite the improved relations, it was unclear whether White and his co-chief negotiator, AFTRA Executive Director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth, would be able wrangle a deal from the studios Saturday night or would need more time to bridge differences over bread-and-butter economic issues.

The actors unions are seeking more than the 2% annual raises recently won by the Teamsters, citing salary "compression" that has squeezed the income of actors. Many actors are no longer able to earn the fees they once commanded and have seen a decline in TV residuals — fees they earn from reruns — because fewer shows are repeating on networks or later sold into syndication.

FULL story at link.