SAG Vs AFTRA: The Fight Beyond the Potential Actor's Strike

After months of reruns and talk show cancellations most people cringe at the thought of an actor's strike. On June 30th, SAG and AFTRA contracts with studios will expire. As the industry was bracing itself for a potential strike, not many realized the great divide mounting within the actor's own community.

On March 29, 2008 AFTRA and SAG announced that they would no longer be negotiating together at the conclusion of their contract. SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) had intended to negotiate together for their Exhibit A contract.

Providing a little background, SAG traditionally was the union that covered all film work and primetime television. At inception, AFTRA covered radio artists, talk show hosts and soap operas. As it was explained to me when I started acting, SAG covers anything shot on film and AFTRA covers anything on video. Although that is simplifying SAG and AFTRA's contracts, that was the case for most projects.

With the advent of digital technology, the actor's unions were sent into a tailspin. Primetime television shows were now being shot digitally on cameras. Gradually AFTRA began to accept contracts for television shows traditionally produced under SAG contracts. The one hitch was that they would employ the actor's under the contracts that SAG had previously hired them under.

AFTRA's acceptance of primetime television shows had producer's cheering because AFTRA did not charge as much as SAG had been charging for production. SAG was irate because they felt AFTRA was poaching projects that were rightly theirs. AFTRA was annoyed because they wanted a bigger cut of the pie and felt entitled to work primetime shows.

For anyone paying attention to entertainment news, SAG and AFTRA have proclaimed an all out war. The two unions that initially set out to negotiate an Exhibit A contract together (the contract SAG uses for network television that AFTRA adopted under it's own primetime shows) each set out to do their own negotiating.