Tag: Contracts

Verizon UpDate

If the union bureaucracy does call a strike, it will seek to use it to pressure management into allowing unionization of Verizon wireless and business divisions. To achieve this, the union leadership would be willing to agree to wage and benefit concessions for its current members and sub-standard pay and benefits for workers in newly unionized divisions.

The CWA signed a deal with AT&T, which accepted concessions in exchange for allowing workers in its wireless division to join the union. Since 2005, the CWA has been able to sign up 19,000 additional members.

Verizon is aiming to make its employees pay the cost of creating its new network by gutting health and pension benefits and holding down wages. In 2005, Verizon ended pension benefits for more than 50,000 management employees. At the same time, the company eliminated retiree health benefits for those managers with fewer than 15 years. The company is now seeking to impose similar cutbacks on its unionized work force.

SAG UpDate #8

This is a statement released by SAG on 28 July 08.

Dear Screen Actors Guild Member,

The Screen Actors Guild National Board of Directors met Saturday and passed a resolution reaffirming its support for the National Negotiating Committee.

The resolution passed unanimously with a vote of 68 – 0 and states:
It is a core principle of Screen Actors Guild —

That no non-union work shall be authorized to be done under any Screen Actors Guild agreement and;

That all work under a Screen Actors Guild contract, regardless of budget level, shall receive fair compensation when reused.

This resolution represents guidance from the National Board of Directors to the National Negotiating Committee.  It reaffirms the importance of these issues in our current TV/Theatrical Negotiations.

The Board’s reaffirmation of these principles reinforces what we have been telling the industry for some time:  Screen Actors Guild members and leadership understand how important it is that new media productions under our contract be done union and that there be fair residuals for all programming run or re-run on new media.

This does not mean that new media is our only focus.  We know that you are also concerned about such bargaining priorities as product integration, force majeure, background actors’ issues and mileage.  We will be communicating with you in more depth on these and other bargaining priorities in the coming days.
As we continue to work toward a successful conclusion to these important TV/Theatrical contract negotiations, we remain committed to securing a fair contract that serves actors’ needs.

Thank you to the thousands of Screen Actors Guild members (more than 5,100) who have signed the Solidarity Statement in support of our National Negotiating Committee and to the thousands of you who have sent us your comments and suggestions.  We appreciate your dedication to your union and to your fellow actors.

For those who want to sign on and haven’t yet done so, you can send an email with your name and member ID number to contract2008@sag.org.  Feel free to include your comments and suggestions. Your input is welcome and valuable. You can also visit us at www.sag.org and click on the Solidarity Statement box to see the thousands of actors who have signed the statement.

As many of you know, this year marks our 75th Anniversary. It is a good time to remember our founders and to consider what Screen Actors Guild stands for:  We stand for actors — always. It is more important than ever that we stand together in support of our union, each other and for all of the actors to come.

Thank you once again for your solidarity and commitment.

In unity,

Alan Rosenberg

Longshoremen Reach A Deal

As was reported in the WSJ,

West Coast port operators reached a tentative deal with dockworkers on a new contract, thereby averting the risk of any further work disruptions at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington.

The two sides reached the agreement after what they labeled “a marathon weekend bargaining session.” The deal comes more than three weeks after the 26,000 dockworkers’ last contract expired July 1.

The deal will come as a relief to shippers who had watched with increasing worry as the dockworkers engaged in a series of work slowdowns in recent weeks at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland.

The agreement is subject to ratification by both the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents the dockworkers, and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents terminal operators, ocean shippers and stevedores at the 29 ports.

In a press release late Monday, leaders from the two sides said they wouldn’t reveal details of the tentative six-year agreement for the time being.

If ratified, the agreement will avoid a repeat of what happened in 2002, the last time the union’s contract expired, when a negotiation impasse and a series of slowdowns at the docks eventually led to a 10-day lockout, snarling the nation’s supply chain and costing the economy billions of dollars.

SAG UpDate #6

On July 19 about 700 actors from the Hollywood division of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) packed the Empire Room of the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. The meeting was called by the guild’s leadership in celebration of SAG’s 75th anniversary. The Hollywood branch has approximately 72,000 members, or about 60 percent of the national membership.

The meeting took place under tense and complex conditions. The current round of negotiations with writers, directors and performers in the entertainment industry, centered in Southern California, began a year ago. The writers, members of the Writers Guild, struck for more than three months last winter, and the leadership ended up reaching a rotten compromise, which failed to win increases on residuals from the sales of DVDs and included minimal gains for material on new media. The Directors Guild and American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (AFTRA) leaderships reached agreements along the same lines. Essentially, the entertainment conglomerates have gotten what they wanted, with minor exceptions.

The studios and networks are insisting that SAG sign the same sort of deal, but the guild leadership has held out to this point over the issue of new media in particular. In a statement sent out July 17, SAG national executive director Doug Allen insisted that the actors’ union must get a better deal than the writers and directors

SAG UpDate #5

The Screen Actors Guild on Thursday gave its most detailed explanation yet for its rejection of a final contract offer by Hollywood studios, citing shortfalls in pay and union jurisdiction on made-for-Internet productions.

In a letter to SAG’s 120,000 members, Doug Allen, the guild’s executive director, claimed the offer would allow nonunion actors into “almost all new media productions for the foreseeable future.”

It said the producers’ offer also would leave out residual fees paid to actors for content that is made specifically for, and then retransmitted on, the Web.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers responded with an equally detailed statement describing its Internet offer as “a major advancement” from the previous contract.

The producers have offered to mandate union coverage for Web shows that cost less than $15,000 per minute, but only if a union actor is hired. Those costing more would also be covered, regardless of who is hired.

They also offered residual payments for Internet-only shows that are rebroadcast on pay platforms like iTunes, theatrically or on television. Paid downloads of movies would trigger double the residual rate actors now receive from DVDs.

The producers have said a final offer they made June 30 was worth $250 million in additional compensation over three years, an estimate the guild disputes.

The offer mirrors those accepted by writers, directors and the smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

SAG UpDate

A campaign by the Screen Actors Guild to persuade members of a smaller rival union to vote down a new contract has foundered, an outcome that could weaken SAG’s leverage in its negotiations with the Hollywood studios.

Members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists on Tuesday approved a new three-year, prime-time TV contract, dealing a blow to SAG leaders who had gambled heavily on defeating a contract they blasted as bad for actors.

The AFTRA vote — widely viewed as a barometer of support for SAG negotiators — doesn’t eliminate the prospect of a strike, but it leaves the guild with fewer alternatives. The protracted negotiations are causing uncertainty throughout Hollywood, holding up feature film productions and casting a pall over the upcoming fall TV season.

SAG leaders could still seek a strike authorization vote from members, but that option is considered risky given the deteriorating economy and strike fatigue after the 100-day Hollywood writers walkout that ended in February.

AFTRA leaders countered that broadcasters accounted for less than 10% of the union’s 70,000 members, 52,000 of whom are actors. AFTRA did not report how many of its members voted. The 120,000-member SAG represents the vast majority of those working on prime-time TV shows and, unlike AFTRA, actors who work in feature films.

AFTRA President Roberta Reardon called SAG’s actions “an unprecedented disinformation campaign” and praised actors for displaying “courage in the face of potential retribution by taking a stand against disunity.” She called on the unions to revisit the possibility of merging and jointly negotiating an upcoming commercials contract.

The contract ratified Tuesday was modeled after similar pacts negotiated by directors and writers. Although the accord includes pay hikes for actors and establishes payments for programs streamed on the Internet, SAG contended it didn’t meet such key bargaining goals as increasing residuals from DVD sales and ensuring that all Internet programs were covered by its contract.

Leave It To Texas Oil Men

Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.

As reported in the NY Times, it appears the the oil men running this country have assisted the awarding of a oil contract to a Texas firm.

The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.

United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.

The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.

In an e-mail message released by the Congressional committee, a State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.”

Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has condemned the Kurdistan deal as illegal because it was not approved by Iraq’s central government and was struck without an oil law, which has still not been passed.

The encouragement by State Department officials did not end with the signing of the contract on Sept. 8, the documents suggest. Five days later, a State Department official in the southern city of Basra wrote to Ms. Phillips, “I read and heard about with interest your deal with the regional Kurdish government.”

“I don’t know if you are aware of another opportunity,” the official wrote, mentioning an enormous port project and a natural gas project in the south. After a few more lines, the official concluded, “This seems like it would be a good opportunity for Hunt.”

GM And The Workers

More than a quarter of General Motors Corp.’s hourly workers are expected to leave by the summer as a result of a recent buyout and retirement offer, the company announced today amid reports that Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will announce additional restructuring measures at its annual meeting next week.

GM said 19,000 of its 73,000 hourly workers have signed up for buyouts and retirement offers, GM announced this afternoon. Workers will be expected to leave by July.

While the number leaving is far higher than that of a similar program at Ford Motor Co. earlier this year, it is a bit below the number GM targeted under its special attrition program offers, also called the SAP.

“We had hoped that 20-25,000 would take the SAP at GM – setting up at least 12,000 hires this fall,” said Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. “I think GM assumed this also. So GM is much closer to its target than Ford.”

GM still has the capacity to build 1.7 million of its largest vehicles, from Escalades to Silverados, in North America, McAlinden said. “They probably only need 1 million units at most due to the structural change in the market. … So, we worry. Pontiac East, Flint Truck & Bus, they are all at risk.”

GM already announced this week that it is speeding up the elimination of a shift each at those pickup plants, even though they had been down for weeks because of the UAW’s strike against American Axle & Manufacturing Inc., which supplies those factories. The latest announcements leave them each with just one shift. It is considered inefficient and costly to operate plants with just one shift.

The workers are paying the price for the ratification of the lame contracts that the auto industry gave them.  The Workers need to be more protected and their unions are failing them in the category.