Screen Actors Guild | The New York Observer

Actors At War: It's West Coast vs. East Coast in S.A.G. Labor Negotiations

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:58:46 -0400

No, the Screen Actors Guild and the studios still haven't come to an agreement on a new contract, which expired June 30. Now the New York chapter of S.A.G. is getting mighty feisty with their Los Angeles leaders about finding a solution, or else. Yesterday, they sent out a biting statement, stating that S.A.G. leaders are "failing to bargain realistically" with the studios. They're demanding that they seek help from a federal mediator if...

Could SAG's Election Affect Negotiations With Studios?

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:24:02 -0400

Nope! The Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers will continue to slug it out over a new contract, whether or not top board members change in an upcoming S.A.G. election.

On Tuesday, S.A.G. will be releasing an official list of candidates for new national board members and alternatives. About one-third of the total 69 national board seats are open for election this year. The New York division alone...

SAG Infighting Stalls Negotiations

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:52:33 -0400

Insurrectionists in the Screen Actors Guild! It seems a group of Hollywood actors are uniting against the guild leadership in an attempt to pry the reins from the current leadership.

Calling themselves Unite for Strength, they've launched a campaign and nominated 31 candidates to head up the governing board that is making contract negotiations with major Hollywood studios, according to Reuters.

The emergence of a serious challenge to SAG's ruling coalition, a Hollywood-based group...

S.A.G. and Producers Spar With Statements

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:30:15 -0400

The Screen Actors Guild and the big studios continue their cat fight over contract deals through letters and statements.

The Screen Actors Guild sent out a memo yesterday outlining exactly why they rejected the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers' final contract offer, citing stinginess in pay and union jurisdiction for online productions.

Doug Allen, the guild's executive director, wrote in a letter to S.A.G. members that the offer would allow nonunion actors into...

Another Actor's Union Accepts Deal, Puts Pressure on S.A.G.

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:19:56 -0400

The Screen Actors Guild is none too happy with union brethren the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. AFTRA members accepted a three-year contract with Hollywood studios, while S.A.G. is still holding out for a better deal. Not only did the union snub S.A.G.'s demands, they also talked some trash.

The Associated Press tells us that Federation President Roberta Reardon is accusing S.A.G. of unleashing an "unprecedented disinformation campaign" that put the...

S.A.G. Seeks More Talks, Strike Talk Continues

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:54:22 -0400

Variety reports that Hollywood is still on hold until the Screen Actors Guild and the studios make their decisions.

Meanwhile the magazine reports on an ad aimed at guild members published by S.A.G. in today's Daily Variety: "Our industry does have a clear choice: a fair labor agreement for middle-class actors and their families ... or more management grandstanding. Support your Screen Actors Guild's national negotiating committee as it works every day for a...

Studios Prepare for Looming Strike

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:22:08 -0400

Hollywood is preparing for impending doom! The Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers' contract expires on Monday. Studios are packing up their projects and tv shows are scrambling to finish shoots. Although there is no indication that a strike will definitely happen, everyone is bracing for the worst. “I don’t think the writers’ strike was good for anybody,” said Teri Weinberg, an executive vice president at NBC...

The Week in DVR: SAG Turns 75, Tila Tequila Fights for Gay Rights?, and Coldplay Does The Daily Show

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:58:05 -0400

MONDAY

Things aren't looking good in Hollywood. A week from today, on June 30, the Screen Actors Guild's contract will expire. And as Variety reported on Friday, it seems increasingly unlikely that a deal with producers will be struck by then. Anyway, time for S.A.G. to celebrate! The labor union turns 75 this year, and Turner Classic Movies will salute its birth with a marathon of classic films from the 30's and 40's—starting...

Hollywood Bracing for Another Strike?

Thu, 29 May 2008 12:07:27 -0400

Los Angeles “will continue to be preoccupied with the threat of Hollywood shutting down,” according to The New York Times’ Michael Cieply, who brings us an update today on the labor negotiations currently under way between producers and actors’ unions.

Yesterday, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists struck a three-year deal with production companies over reusing performers’ images on the Web. But The Times reports that the more powerful Screen Actors...

N.Y. S.A.G. Board Puts Pressure on Guild to Start Talks

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:12:46 -0500

The Screen Actors Guild's New York board is urging S.A.G.'s leadership to begin bargaining by March 31, well before the June 30 expiration of the SAG-AFTRA TV/theatrical contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. S.A.G says it will be ready to open contract talks with the studios in the spring, but that's not good enough for the New York board, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "I see absolutely no...

SAG Considers Informal Talks for Contract

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:40:43 -0500

Screen Actors Guild leaders remain mum about when they plan on gathering at the negotiation table with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers to replace a contract that's set to expire June 30. But spats with sister performers union American Federation of Television and Radio Artists make the prospect of informal talks with studio chiefs much more likely, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Informal meetings with studio fat cats led to...

No Country For Old Men Tops the SAG Awards

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:01:41 -0500

The Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men won the top prize at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild awards show, while The Sopranos cleaned up in the television categories. With this year's Golden Globes reduced to a press conference and the fate of next month's Oscars uncertain, the ordinarily downplayed Screen Actors Guild Awards made big headlines thanks to the WGA’s promise that it would not picket the show, a sign of solidarity...

ABC, S.A.G. Attendees Bicker Over Hair, Make-Up Costs

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:25:28 -0500

According to Variety, the latest front in Hollywood's labor war is over hair, makeup and limos. Insiders told the trade paper that ABC and ABC Studios will not pick up the tab for its talent attending the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Jan. 27, set to air on TNT and TBS. In less contentious times, it's industry tradition that networks and studios split the costs of getting talent ready for the red carpet at...

Spirit, SAG Awards Could Outshine Globes, Oscars This Year

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:23:31 -0500

Now that the Golden Globes has flopped and the Academy Awards are in jeopardy, the Screen Actors Guild and Film Independent Spirit awards shows have a chance to shine this year. Both shows—the proverbial bridesmaids, so to speak—have been granted waivers from the Writers Guild of America, so the stars are expected to show up in their designer finest. What else are they going to do with those red carpet gems they've been hording...

Early DVD Campaigns Can Lead to Award-Show Upsets

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:58:30 -0500

In 2005, the early release Crash pulled off its big win in the Screen Actors Guild ensemble race — which foreshadowed its big upset on Oscar night—after ambushing Hollywood with non-watermarked DVDs. According to Tom O'Neil at the Los Angeles Times' Gold Derby blog, yesterday's SAG Awards nominees prove two points: "how key it is to get your movie out early in theaters and then to campaign to voters with DVDs and Q&A screenings."...

Into the Wild Leads S.A.G. Awards

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:45:07 -0500

Into the Wild led contenders for the Screen Actors Guild Awards with four nominations, including honors for lead actor Emile Hirsch and supporting players Hal Holbrook and Catherine Keener. The nominations were announced this morning.

Directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild also was nominated for performance by its overall cast, along with the Western 3:10 to Yuma, the crime sagas American Gangster and No Country for Old Men, and the musical Hairspray.

Guild...

Taking a Contract Out on the Writers

Sun, 13 May 2001 20:00:00 -0400

And so, just before 4 p.m. on Friday, May 4, the

long-threatened and much-dreaded writers' strike was finally averted. Representatives of the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers stepped in front of the TV cameras, smiled, shook hands and announced that, after a week of marathon negotiations, a three-year deal had been reached. There was joy in the land. Real-estate agents, photocopy-shop operators, car valets and maître d's rejoiced. And for at least 24...

How Do You Negotiate Respect?

Sun, 18 Feb 2001 19:00:00 -0500

LOS ANGELES-February marks the end of the rainy season in

Los Angeles. The air is cool. The nights are chilly. A strange, spirit-dampening meteorological phenomenon occurs out here that we on the East Coast might call "weather": There are entire days when the sky is filled with rain clouds, when the glorious California sun doesn't show itself. This particular February, however, there is also a newfound sense of unease in the air. A darkening, if you will, of the...

Drop the Crest! There's a Strike Going on! … W. Does Letterman, Will Bill?

Sun, 22 Oct 2000 20:00:00 -0400

Wednesday, Oct. 18

Hey! Why don't you care about the commercial actors' strike? Why aren't you hooking arms with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins and standing up to the corporate greed of the advertising industry? Why aren't you boycotting Procter & Gamble products, like the members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists asked you to last week? What the heck is that tube of...

Peter Vallone Pushes for Pickets … Hey, Philly! Here Comes Joe Piscopo! … George W. Bush Moves Dennis Miller

Sun, 30 Jul 2000 20:00:00 -0400

Already nastier than a Liz Hurley-Anna Kournikova slapfight, the three-month-old commercial actors' strike keeps getting uglier by the day.

First it was the actors charging that the advertisers were all a bunch of Warbucksian greedheads, unwilling to share their accumulating millions during an era of unprecedented prosperity. Then it was the advertisers calling the actors a bunch of ungrateful whiners who wouldn't know a good deal if it marched up and offered them a speaking...

Colgate, Old Spice Ads Disrupted as Actors Picket Madison Avenue

Sun, 04 Jun 2000 20:00:00 -0400

It was just after dawn on the morning of May 25, and Mercer Street in Soho was already bustling with activity. A commercial for Colgate was scheduled to shoot that morning, and a team of burly crew members began to arrange lights and cameras for the production. Across the street lingered a gaggle of casually dressed actors, but these actors had no intention of smiling for the camera. They were on strike, they were...

Colgate, Old Spice Ads Disrupted as Actors Picket Madison Avenue

Sun, 04 Jun 2000 20:00:00 -0400

Commercial Actors Countdown to a Strike … 10-4 for 90210 and PO5 ... Freaks and Geeks Invade TV Museum

Sun, 30 Apr 2000 20:00:00 -0400

Wednesday, April 26

Ronald McDonald may be headed for the picket line. More than 130,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are expected to walk off the job on Monday, May 1. That includes more than 50,000 union actors in New York. The dispute centers on residual fees–known as "pay per play"–which actors are paid each time an advertisement airs. Union actors want "pay per play"...