Hollywood watches SAG drama in disbelief
No fictional soap opera could top the reality show that is playing out before our eyes as the actors’ dispute moves into Act 3.
When I started writing this week’s column, I thought that by the time it was published there could be real movement toward finally concluding an agreement between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. After all, this Tuesday and Wednesday, for the first time since November, the producers (including studios and networks) and actors were scheduled to meet to see if they could finally settle the seven-month-old labor dispute that has disrupted Hollywood. The meeting had not come easily and the back-story is quite a drama, even for actors.
In our last episode, Alan Rosenberg, president of SAG, and Doug Allen, SAG national executive director (and a former Buffalo Bills linebacker and executive for the National Football League Players Association), were leading the negotiations for actors. But nothing was happening. Rosenberg and Allen had drawn a line in the sand over such things as residuals, jurisdiction over new media, back pay, product integration and other areas, all of them noble causes. The producers were not budging from their last offer on June 30 of last year when the contract with SAG expired.
Since June, however, the world has changed. The country has gone into an economic meltdown. Companies (including studios and networks) have been laying off people in droves, production of studio movies (as opposed to independent films) has all but shut down, financing for films has become much more difficult to obtain, television production has been affected and a great deal of people in the biz are out of work. A good reason for Hollywood’s troubles has been that no one has known what SAG was going to do.
In addition, AFTRA, the smaller actor’s union that shares television and cable jurisdiction with SAG and whose agreement expired the same day as SAG’s, made its own deal with the producers even though AFTRA had traditionally stood with SAG. In the course of closing their deal, AFTRA gave up on some points that Rosenberg and Allen held dear. That caused SAG management, in an unprecedented move, to actively work to have AFTRA members (many of whom are also SAG members) vote down the agreement. AFTRA was livid, SAG failed and the AFTRA-Producers agreement is in place today, causing some new TV shows to sign with AFTRA rather than wait for the SAG agreement to be concluded.
In an attempt to get leverage against the producers, SAG management sought authorization from members to call a strike. That caused a civil war within the guild. On the one side were moderates known as “United for Strength” who were quite vocal in their view that this was not the time to strike, given the economic climate. In the other corner were the hard liners, “Membership First” (catchy names eh?), who felt their cause was just and SAG should not give up on anything.
Things got ugly between the two factions with a great deal of name-calling. There was even an anonymous e-mail campaign urging members not to vote for moderates like Josh Brolin, Kevin Spacey, Susan Sarandon, Sally Field, Alec Baldwin and Steve Carell for the coveted SAG Awards, because of their moderate views. Wham!
Three weeks ago, SAG called a board meeting to resolve matters and everyone thought that during the meeting the chief negotiator, hardliner Allen, would be replaced and the moderates, who had a slight board majority, would take over. But the Membership First group, in the equivalent of a filibuster, prevented that from happening and disbanded the meeting without any decisions about anything. Bang!
That did it for the moderates. Last week, using a seldom-invoked SAG rule, they passed a resolution without a meeting and fired Allen, bringing in two experienced and respected SAG management alums to take over negotiations. And for good measure, they banned Allen’s greatest supporter, Rosenberg, from speaking to the press on behalf of the guild. Pow!
Most observers believed that the stage was now set to resolve matters with the producers. But wait! Another plot twist! On Monday night, on the eve of the meeting with the producers, SAG was apparently served with a notice from Rosenberg (and presumably the minority board members) stating that they would be in court Tuesday morning seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the Allen firing. Zing!
So the meeting with the producers was put on hold indefinitely and everyone trooped down to court on Tuesday morning only to be told by the judge that the temporary restraining order was dismissed because of a technicality. Zing!
But the hard liners replied “We’ll be baaaak…” and another hearing has been set for this Thursday. Ping!
Anyone want the TV rights to this drama? I don’t think so. Just get out of the way.
E. Barry Haldeman is an entertainment lawyer with the full service firm of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP in Century City. He represents writers, producers, actors, authors and companies in the entertainment business. He previously served as executive vice president of Business and Legal Affairs for Paramount Pictures.