The proposed new two-year contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the Studios has been passed by the membership with a healthy 78% of members saying yes to it. It ends over a year of wrangling, in-fighting and on/off negotiations between the industry and the film and TV actors union, which has seen members working without an official contract since June 30th of last year.
Although only 35.3% of members voted, that’s a slightly higher turnout than usual. The deal covers wage and pension contirbution increases, as well as giving the union juridisction over new media work for the first time. It averts the threat of a strike, which has been hanging over the mvoie industry and caused many productions to be put of the back burner. in case actors were forced to walk off set during filming.
While SAG’s hardline, known as MembershipFirst and which includes the union’s president, Alan Rosenberg, campaigned against the deal (even after the announcement of the vote he described the pact as “devastatingly unsatisfactory”), it appears the membership is generally more moderate. You can see why they might be, as actors have missed out on $100 million in wage increases, which they’d have got if the deal had passed before the June 30th deadline and had got caught up in negotiation limbo.
However the internal problems at SAG aren’t at an end, as campaigning has already begun for the elections to SAG’s main board this autumn. It’s likely to be a bitter fight between moderates and hardliners, but many hope that whatever the resuly, eventually the leadership will find some harmony.