AMPTP Revives Ticker Gambit
Producers' Web Site Shows SAG-Covered Actors Have Lost $6.2 Million
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 7/28/2008 10:32:00 AM
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has returned to a strategy it used to beat up on the Writers Guild of America during its strike earlier this year: a ticker on its Web site touting the enhanced compensation actors could lose if they don't approve the contract on the table.
The ticker, at www.amptp.org, represents the expanded benefits and pay actors could receive, retroactive to July 1, if the board of the Screen Actors Guild allows its members to vote on the "last, best" contract offer from producers. Actors could receive compensation for some of their work that's streamed over the Internet, plus other improved benefits.
"The continued refusal of SAG's negotiators to accept AMPTP's final offer means that actors will continue to work indefinitely under the expired contract - an old contract that contains none of the $250 million in additional compensation provided by AMPTP's final offer, and an old contract that provides none of the new media rights and residuals that other Hollywood Guild members have now been enjoying for months," the producers union said in a prepared statement this weekend.
As of noon (ET) Monday, the AMPTP alleged that SAG-covered actors have lost $6.2 million in increased compensation in the 27 days they have worked without a contract.
SAG has not spoken publicly on a contract since a letter to members on July 17, when the union leadership indicated it would not approve the AMPTP offer because too many factors had changed since a contract "template" of benefits had been set in negotiations with directors six months ago.
