Hasta La Creative!

Considering that we’re living in the “Platinum Age of Video Production,” the tentative new SAG/AFTRA contract is an insultingly bad deal for rank-and-file Guild members. Before I get into specifics, I want to make it clear that I do not have a dog in this hunt. I have no SAG/AFTRA political aspirations of any kind (SAG/AFTRA elections come not long after the contract ratification vote this month). And, most importantly, I am not endorsing any candidate for any position. I simply see this as an opportunity to remind my Guild-member friends and colleagues that if you ask the wrong questions, you’re going to get the wrong answers.

I’ve been a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which have now merged into a combined entity called SAG/AFTRA, and of the Association of Federated Musicians (AFM) for more than 47 years. I’ve been a producer for 38 of them, so I’ve spent most of my career on both sides (union member and producer) of the negotiating table. This has given me a unique vantage point from which to evaluate union contracts.

In all the years I’ve been in business, I have never seen a deal that demonstrated greater ignorance of the present (and the near-term future) than the deal recently presented to the SAG/AFTRA rank-and-file membership for ratification. While the negotiated concessions and givebacks are costly and unfortunate, they pale in comparison to the near-term future conditions the document fails to address.

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