With the strike by American performers unions sag and aftra against the u.s. commercial producers nearing an end, the new Television Commercials Contract needs only to survive a vote by the membership of the two unions to officially take effect. Results of the membership ratification vote, to take place Dec. 1, are expected to be announced the following Monday, Dec. 3.

The ‘nearly unanimous’ vote by the joint aftra/sag boards left union members with the recommendation to approve the new contract, and end a work stoppage that has dragged on since May 1.

A back-to-work order was issued for members effective Oct. 30, and short of an unexpected rejection of the contract, u.s. commercial production is expected to return to normal after an eventful summer of labor negotiations.

Overall, sag spokesman Greg Krizman is satisfied with the new contract. ‘Nobody ever gets everything they are looking for. That’s why they call the process negotiation,’ Krizman begins. ‘However, we did get immediate financial gains, which our members will surely appreciate. Especially in the area of cable television. Also, getting them to give us jurisdiction over the Internet and commercials made exclusively for the Internet. And we were able to retain residual payments for network television commercials. So we think it’s a good deal for the members because they get immediate financial gain and they’re protected into the future.

‘Our concession was that we were not able to have residuals applied to cable, which is something that we were looking for. But we felt that the 140% pay increase goes a long way in addressing what you’d address through establishing those [cable] residuals anyway – more money in the pockets of actors,’ Krizman explains.

In Canada, national executive director of actra Stephen Waddell is ‘pleased that the Screen Actors Guild and aftra were able to reach an equitable agreement with the u.s. advertising industry.’

The new contract, says Waddell, helps Canadian performers as well. He explains: ‘Under our contract, if a producer in Canada or an agency in Canada is producing a commercial for the u.s., they incorporate the sag terms and conditions into our agreement. So Canadian performers get the benefit of the sag increases immediately.’

Waddell believes the difficulty the unions had in ‘maintaining solidarity in strike situations’ should be ‘a lesson’ to them. For him, ‘given the nature of production in North America and globally these days, a strike in one jurisdiction affects performers in others.

‘We saw lots of production come to Canada during the strike and there was precious little we could do effectively, because we have our own collective agreement. That’s a challenge for us. And what it means, in my view, is that we need to meet with the key leadership of sag and aftra and other English speaking unions throughout the world. [We should] talk about how we effectively provide solidarity to each other in these circumstances,’ Waddell says.

In the u.s., producers are breathing a little easier as their pool of union talent returns. Kevin Johnston, executive producer and partner at New York-based Boomerang Pictures, who said during the strike that he ‘feared for the American industry,’ has softened his stance some, in the wake of renewed labor peace.

‘It’s too early to tell. But I do know – from my own personal experience – an agency was planning on shooting in Canada, thinking the strike was going to continue, and when the strike ended, still opted to stay in Canada even though the director was screaming about the talent issue: ‘Now we can get our good talent back.’

‘And for us, that’s the only leverage to stay in the States right now. It’s because the strike is over and we can say, ‘Maybe the talent pool in Canada has been used up in the last seven months.’ But I think you’re still going to see – when we have budget problems here in the States – they’re still going to come to Canada. There is no doubt,’ Johnston says.

At home, our Canadian producers – while divided on the value the strike brought to Canada – expect the experience to help the Canadian business in the end.

Parker Jefferson of the Vancouver-based Ace Film Company says that ‘for some reason, there is a word-of-mouth about Vancouver that’s gotten out there. I have clients in Manhattan where if they have something that requires locations and it’s more than two shoot days, they’ll call me automatically. So, what I’ve heard, as a result of the sag strike, we did get more business up here.’

In Toronto, the Partners’ Film Company’s Don McLean maintains his belief that they ‘did a lot of roadhouse work, but it was here, in most cases, because of the dollar.’

However, McLean acknowledges the possibility that people who had never been north before ‘may be tempted to come back and do it again.’ On the other hand, McLean also understands that the great rush of production was extremely taxing on our local crews and locations.

‘The shortage of qualified bodies was a problem, certainly during the couple of months when it was really going. I don’t know, but I think there were people who came and were disappointed. We didn’t have any real disasters, but we had to struggle on occasion to just make sure we were protecting these people,’ McLean says. *

-www.sag.org