Visit our sister site:
Follow us on
Headline, Industry News
SAG opposition group wins majority of open seats
Monday September 22nd 2008LOS ANGELES (AP) – An upstart group of actors said Thursday it won a majority of Hollywood seats up for re-election on the national board of the Screen Actors Guild, a shake-up that could dislodge the logjam in contract talks with the movie studios.
The Unite for Strength group, including Amy Brenneman and Kate Walsh of “Private Practice,” claimed six of 11 Hollywood seats up for grabs, breaking the incumbent Membership First majority on the 71-member board.
Membership First, which had a slim voting majority, won just five of the 11 Hollywood seats it once commanded. Its total number of seats slipped to 29, said spokeswoman Anne Marie Johnson.
The results did not signal a clear change in direction for stalled talks between the guild and major Hollywood studios over a contract on film and prime-time TV show production that expired June 30. The outcome was complicated by the fact that the 13-member negotiating committee controlled by Membership First will not change, nor will guild President Alan Rosenberg or Doug Allen, the lead negotiator and executive director.
Morgan Fairchild, who was endorsed by Unite for Strength and was counted among their six, ran as an independent.
“Nobody really has a majority now,” said Rosenberg, a Membership First member. “I’m going to be behaving as if no one is treating any issue as a fait accompli.”
Unite for Strength spokesman Ned Vaughn, an actor who won an alternate seat, would not commit to a new direction for the talks, though the group could muster the votes to oust Allen from his post.
“All I can say is we need to consult with our colleagues on the national board,” he said.
Vaughn’s group has been more clearly focused on merging SAG, representing 120,000 members, and a smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, with 70,000 members.
The two ended joint negotiations with the studios acrimoniously this year, and in July AFTRA ratified its own prime-time TV deal with the studios, which SAG said was inadequate.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the studios, had no comment on the election.
On Wednesday, SAG upheld an internal mail-in poll of its members, in which 87 percent of the respondents supported holding out for a better deal. The AMPTP derided the polling materials as “hopelessly one-sided.”
The disagreement is largely focused on how to handle productions made for the Internet.
SAG actors continue to work under the terms of the old deal and the guild has not taken a strike authorization vote.
The next SAG board meeting, at which the newly elected group could exercise its muscle, is scheduled for Oct. 18.
Rosenberg said he thought the internal poll carried more weight than the election results.
“Both slates said they wanted a better contract than the one on the table,” Rosenberg said. “I think the postcard that came back yesterday should impact the negotiations more than the election should.”
Source: The Associated Press
Headline, Industry News
SAG opposition group wins majority of open seats
Monday September 22nd 2008LOS ANGELES (AP) – An upstart group of actors said Thursday it won a majority of Hollywood seats up for re-election on the national board of the Screen Actors Guild, a shake-up that could dislodge the logjam in contract talks with the movie studios.
The Unite for Strength group, including Amy Brenneman and Kate Walsh of “Private Practice,” claimed six of 11 Hollywood seats up for grabs, breaking the incumbent Membership First majority on the 71-member board.
Membership First, which had a slim voting majority, won just five of the 11 Hollywood seats it once commanded. Its total number of seats slipped to 29, said spokeswoman Anne Marie Johnson.
The results did not signal a clear change in direction for stalled talks between the guild and major Hollywood studios over a contract on film and prime-time TV show production that expired June 30. The outcome was complicated by the fact that the 13-member negotiating committee controlled by Membership First will not change, nor will guild President Alan Rosenberg or Doug Allen, the lead negotiator and executive director.
Morgan Fairchild, who was endorsed by Unite for Strength and was counted among their six, ran as an independent.
“Nobody really has a majority now,” said Rosenberg, a Membership First member. “I’m going to be behaving as if no one is treating any issue as a fait accompli.”
Unite for Strength spokesman Ned Vaughn, an actor who won an alternate seat, would not commit to a new direction for the talks, though the group could muster the votes to oust Allen from his post.
“All I can say is we need to consult with our colleagues on the national board,” he said.
Vaughn’s group has been more clearly focused on merging SAG, representing 120,000 members, and a smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, with 70,000 members.
The two ended joint negotiations with the studios acrimoniously this year, and in July AFTRA ratified its own prime-time TV deal with the studios, which SAG said was inadequate.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the studios, had no comment on the election.
On Wednesday, SAG upheld an internal mail-in poll of its members, in which 87 percent of the respondents supported holding out for a better deal. The AMPTP derided the polling materials as “hopelessly one-sided.”
The disagreement is largely focused on how to handle productions made for the Internet.
SAG actors continue to work under the terms of the old deal and the guild has not taken a strike authorization vote.
The next SAG board meeting, at which the newly elected group could exercise its muscle, is scheduled for Oct. 18.
Rosenberg said he thought the internal poll carried more weight than the election results.
“Both slates said they wanted a better contract than the one on the table,” Rosenberg said. “I think the postcard that came back yesterday should impact the negotiations more than the election should.”
Source: The Associated Press
Leave a Reply
Headline, Industry News
SAG opposition group wins majority of open seats
Monday September 22nd 2008LOS ANGELES (AP) – An upstart group of actors said Thursday it won a majority of Hollywood seats up for re-election on the national board of the Screen Actors Guild, a shake-up that could dislodge the logjam in contract talks with the movie studios.
The Unite for Strength group, including Amy Brenneman and Kate Walsh of “Private Practice,” claimed six of 11 Hollywood seats up for grabs, breaking the incumbent Membership First majority on the 71-member board.
Membership First, which had a slim voting majority, won just five of the 11 Hollywood seats it once commanded. Its total number of seats slipped to 29, said spokeswoman Anne Marie Johnson.
The results did not signal a clear change in direction for stalled talks between the guild and major Hollywood studios over a contract on film and prime-time TV show production that expired June 30. The outcome was complicated by the fact that the 13-member negotiating committee controlled by Membership First will not change, nor will guild President Alan Rosenberg or Doug Allen, the lead negotiator and executive director.
Morgan Fairchild, who was endorsed by Unite for Strength and was counted among their six, ran as an independent.
“Nobody really has a majority now,” said Rosenberg, a Membership First member. “I’m going to be behaving as if no one is treating any issue as a fait accompli.”
Unite for Strength spokesman Ned Vaughn, an actor who won an alternate seat, would not commit to a new direction for the talks, though the group could muster the votes to oust Allen from his post.
“All I can say is we need to consult with our colleagues on the national board,” he said.
Vaughn’s group has been more clearly focused on merging SAG, representing 120,000 members, and a smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, with 70,000 members.
The two ended joint negotiations with the studios acrimoniously this year, and in July AFTRA ratified its own prime-time TV deal with the studios, which SAG said was inadequate.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the studios, had no comment on the election.
On Wednesday, SAG upheld an internal mail-in poll of its members, in which 87 percent of the respondents supported holding out for a better deal. The AMPTP derided the polling materials as “hopelessly one-sided.”
The disagreement is largely focused on how to handle productions made for the Internet.
SAG actors continue to work under the terms of the old deal and the guild has not taken a strike authorization vote.
The next SAG board meeting, at which the newly elected group could exercise its muscle, is scheduled for Oct. 18.
Rosenberg said he thought the internal poll carried more weight than the election results.
“Both slates said they wanted a better contract than the one on the table,” Rosenberg said. “I think the postcard that came back yesterday should impact the negotiations more than the election should.”
Source: The Associated Press
Leave a Reply
Advertisements
