AFTRA votes YES, what does this mean for Voice Over?

Yup.

By a margin of about 62%, AFTRA members have ratified a new 3 year prime time TV contract.
It'll be interesting to see how SAG responds to this, and what impact it will have on their current negotiations with the AMPTP.

For more info on the particulars of this contract head over to VoiceOverXtra, or you can read my interview with AFTRA Vice President Holter Graham.

Here we go...

Five Questions for AFTRA National VP Holter Graham about the AFTRA - AMPTP Negotiations

I had a chance to send some emails back and forth with Holter Graham about the current AFTRA - AMPTP contract. Some really interesting stuff, from someone who was in the room on the negotiations.

Before I get into the actual questions, I'd just like to thank Holter for taking the time in providing some very thoughtful answers to the questions I've asked. I've personally been hard on AFTRA in the past (even though radio has been VERY good to me), and regardless of where you might sit on the current situation, I think a call for perspective and reasonableness (in discourse) is something we should all agree on. So, my faithful readers, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!

1. What was the mood of the negotiations? Any fall out from the WGA strike?

The mood in the negotiations was predominantly businesslike, with some very hairy moments caused by both interior and exterior factors. For example, when the issue of Clip Consent exploded in all of our faces, there were multiple moments where AFTRA and the AMPTP were very far apart, and multiple moments when either side could have walked away. But AFTRA stuck strong, and the AMPTP backed down and we retained Consent and built a system by which we can make money and protect ourselves moving forward.

At the same time there was always a looming sense that AFTRA was in the room to actually get a deal done that would keep people working, whereas SAG had already started their bluster and scapegoating, so the AMPTP knew that they probably only had one chance to discuss the issues at hand with mature adults, so that added a sense of urgency on both sides.

The WGA strike did not effect us directly, but indirectly the huge financial losses in both sides (labor and management) and the items that the WGA had already taken off the table before they even struck--DVD Residual increases, for example, were abandoned early--served to shape the framework from which we negotiated.

2. What should we be looking forward to in this new contract?

The short list for the new contract is: Money and Protection. There are raises across the board--the entire package is represented as about a 4% increase in total AMPTP spending, which is about a quarter more than unions usually get from one negotiation to the next ( the average overall bump is 3%). There are raises in minimums--more than 10% over the three years--major-role provisions, schedule and money break amounts, as well as a structure for New Media payments and residuals that did not exist until now.

Until now we have been working free-form in New Media, but AFTRA got jurisdiction, which was not guaranteed until now. And while the AMPTP can make certain low-budget experimental New Media programs without guaranteed jurisdiction, AFTRA created such a wide and all-encompassing category of "covered performer" that it will be very difficult for the AMPTP to make much of anything without full union coverage.

3. What's AFTRA's vision for emmergent technologies/new media/video games?

I addressed some of the massive gains we got in New Media in the question above. Video Games/Interactive are a separate contract, one that we at AFTRA are already preparing to negotiate in the fall--I will more than likely be on that committee as I have a a pretty good list of interactive VO and Motion-Capture work. Obviously trying for back-end payments like other areas of our work is paramount, but we have to realize that changing to any form of residual or back-end will be an enormous shift in how we get paid, one that will almost certainly costs the game companies a lot more money. And the unions do not actually have a huge percentage of the work in interactive yet, so our strategy will be to utilize as much leverage as we can while not overplaying our hand and getting locked out of a very lucrative, growing market. For instance, 8 of the top 10 video game grossers last year were made with union talent, but union talent worked on less than 30% of the total games made. So what that means is: we clearly bring a lot of value to a game, but we are not infiltrated into every corner of the industry yet. It is a tenuous position, but AFTRA, at least, understands what is at stake and what our members deserve, and we will fight for that as hard as we can. I know I will.

4. Where do we go from here? What's the next step for this guild?

AFTRA has no problem at all with the 'where do we go from here?' question: through all of this foolish backstabbing and misinformation and inter-union strife of the past years, AFTRA as kept its eye on the ball. When AFTRA suspended Phase One to negotiate with the AMPTP solo, it was because we knew that negotiating alone would be our best bet to get a string deal for or performers, one that would set the template for a storing contract for all union performers in this country. It has been painted a lot of ways, most of them false, but in fact AFTRA has been guided 24/7 by the tenets of what is best for the members.

The proof of that is this strong contract, as well as the fact that my other union never even really tried negotiating with the AMPTP: AFTRA could see that the SAG LA group in power was again going to spend time and money on posturing and not working and so we went out and got a great deal that hopefully will be ratified.

In terms of the future, I would recommend that your readers take a good long look at how things have been going lately in our industry and in the Screen Actor's Guild, my parent union. Every bump in the road, every internecine battle, every confusing campaign of disinformation that pits member against member, has come from ONE source: a small, scared, but effective group of LA actors who call themselves Membership First--which is hard for me to even type without getting mad. They are significantly more worried about holding onto their power base in the Guild than they are about caring for those of us in the union.

They use a lot of rhetoric and say things like "we will stand firm for you!" And they do stand firm, but they are standing firm on ridiculous and outlandish views of the industry and our place in it. They get a lot of votes because they promise the whole world. And then they invariably fail--have been failing for years--and usually blame someone else. Look to the White House for another example of this kind of politics. They are the reason merger failed, they are the reason we struck commercials in 2000 without a real plan for victory, and they have been quoted as saying that the commercials strike failed because it did NOT LAST LONG ENOUGH. Thats who's running our Guild.

There are elections in the fall. I hope your readers will try and educate themselves and then vote for candidates for the SAG LA board who are pragmatic, effective, and dedicated to bettering and protecting the livelihoods of members here in the real world. I will provide you with a list of those I am impressed by when that election grows near, so stay tuned.

5. What are some of your personal concerns/feelings on the current SAG "Vote No" campaign?

I think the above answer painted a pretty clear image of how I feel about the SAG Vote No campaign. I Voted YES three weeks ago, because that is the only choice for all our members--a strong contract on one hand, or a union tampering with a different union to cover the fact that it is inept on the other. It is sad, i hate it, and merger would have fixed everything, but that's the way it is. Vote YES, vote Membership First out, and then we can all spend a lot more time making sure we are good at our jobs so that we can pay our bills. And I want to thank your readers for taking the time to listen to me, and for having the intelligence to want as much information as they can get on the issues that effect their lives.

Holter Graham, Baltimore native, current AFTRA NY president and National Vice President. First seen on screen in 1985's Maximum Overdrive [WOOT! - Ed.], has been a SAG member for near 20 years, and AFTRA member for 13. Working in all fields of the industry, he's currently the voice of HBO for Genre (HBO-produced) content, as well as ads, audiobooks, narrations, and dozens of other gigs at any given moment. No 'day job' since graduating from Skidmore in 1994 a full time working actor!

AFTRA, SAG act like foes

AFTRA, SAG ACT like foes?

I think they're getting pretty close to just being foes.
A quick follow up to my Union mega-post a couple days ago, more news about the simmering hostility between these organizations is surfacing over at Hollywood Reporter.

"On Saturday, the SAG national board voted to keep its so-called Phase
One relationship with AFTRA in place, giving its smaller sister union
50-50 representation on negotiating committees like one to be formed
for film and TV contract talks. The current SAG-AFTRA pact with the
Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers is set to expire
June 30, and negotiations on a new agreement are expected sometime
after Jan. 1.
But the vote to affirm Phase One came with a
controversial addendum suggesting SAG will seek to change how voting is
conducted on the negotiating committee, sources said. Under bloc
voting, SAG members on the committee first would vote among themselves,
and positions favored by a majority of that group would be lodged as a
unanimous vote by all SAG committee members.

In their letter, Reardon and AFTRA national executive
director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth opposed bloc voting on grounds that it
would "create a structure of two separate negotiating committees that
Phase One was created to avoid."
The AFTRA leaders said they were responding to news
accounts of SAG board actions and would make no assumptions pending a
SAG response.
"The bloc voting described by the trade press is of
course completely antithetical to the history and purpose of Phase One
and as a practical matter could result in unwieldy deadlocks during
negotiations," the AFTRA officials wrote.
Hedgpeth said it would be premature to speculate on how AFTRA might respond if SAG proceeds with its bloc voting plan."

Not really all that surprising that AFTRA wouldn't be too happy about this. It's really tricky. The radical in me thinks the time for two unions is over (and would come with the added benefit of reducing the amount of dues 40,000 actors would have to pay being members of both), but the realist in me would be content to have stricter separation over what union handles what job. The fact that a game, for example, could be either SAG OR AFTRA is unacceptable.
It's looking to me like the unions are going to lose yet another round to production due to in-fighting and chest-thumping...


Read the rest here!

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SAG and AFTRA News for August 1st: Good, Bad, and Ugly

A bunch of stories to link out here.

SAG REAFFIRMS 'PHASE ONE' WITH AFTRA (Hollywood Reporter)

Why they would do this I dont know. Basically 'Phase One' means that at negotiations SAG and AFTRA have an equal number of seats at the table. I think this is ... well ... dumb. SAG has a lot more members. If SAG has twice as many members, they should have twice as many seats (though I think the actual difference is 10 to 7 in SAG's favor).
I did find this interesting though:

"Now here's the catch, The final, amended wording of the resolution stated a desire to tinker with how Phase One is implemented during negotiations. Specifically, SAG may try to implement so-called bloc voting on the negotiating committee, sources said. Representation still would be apportioned 50-50, but SAG votes would automatically be counted as a unanimous bloc in favor of whatever position is carried by a majority of SAG reps on the committee. "So if, say, eight SAG committee members want to vote for a position and two are against, through bloc-voting all 10 votes would count as being for the position," a labor community insider explained."

Variety also has a quick write up of the same situation HERE.

AFTRA FORGES ALLIANCE WITH IATSE (Hollywood Reporter)

Interesting development here. With SAG circling the wagons, hoping into bed with the WGA and DGA, and working really hard against Fi-Cores, it looks like AFTRA is trying to reach out to other unions also:

"It grows out of our desire to strike strategic alliances with a large number of entertainment unions," AFTRA spokesman John Hinrichs said of the IATSE announcement. "We have worked with IATSE in the past on a number of ventures, (and) what this says is that we're gong to sit down to figure out ways of working together to benefit our members on a continuing basis."Hinrichs added, "There are no plans at this point to merge."

AFTRA and IATSE?


And lastly:

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD MAY PUSH FOR STRIKE (ASSOCIATED CONTENT)

'Nuff said yeah?

"Other unions, like the Screen Actors Guild have become increasingly concerned at the prospects of a work stoppage sometime within the next year driven by unhappy members that feel they've been treated unfairly by the studios. While SAG's contract doesn't officially expire until July of 2008, and while the Writers Guild expires later this fall, they appear to have many common goals and fears: a general labor strike.
Between the big three, the WGA is considered to be the most militant of the guilds, that is to say they are the most willing to strike if several issues that have been simmering on the back burner since as far back as the 1980s are not addressed this time around, while the Directors Guild of America has been the most pacifist, having never struck in their entire existence.
All three unions are particularly frustrated over the studio's refusal change the residual formula for DVDs, and at least for the WGA, their refusal to even negotiate a new formula for the emerging download and streaming market.
The Screen Actors Guild jointly negotiates its television contract with American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), the former of the two having significantly more members and operates more closely to that of a blue collar union. Factions have developed within SAG that are angry over AFTRA's practice of signing contracts with productions for lower wages than are required by the SAG contracts, which they feel severely undercut their bargaining power."


Whew...

Internet Income Big Issue as Hostile Hollywood Labor Talks Begin, Are We Looking at a Strike?

Hollywood Today has a long and well written article on the impending WGA negotiation, and it's impacts on "New Media". I see these being instrumental to the future of the entertainment industry, especially as the people that actually create this content seem to get hosed on every new platform that emerges (Cable, Home Video, etc).
Now some people think that October is going to be the hot month, but I think it's more likely that serious action wont be taken until actors contracts are up in June 2008.

"With the threat of a strike looming, tense talks kick off today between movie and TV producers and unionized script writers over . While aimed at a contract expiring in October, some insiders believe that ultimately the acrimonious battle over digital compensation could push a final agreement to June 2008, when actor’s contracts are up as well.

That could set the stage for an epic labor showdown in Tinseltown pitting corporate owned, bottom-line oriented management — facing a rapidly changing marketplace – against creative talent (writers and actors) who feel short changed seeing their work pop up on broadband, digital, online, wireless and in other new media markets."

While I do believe something NEEDS to happen here, I'm just not convinced that a strike will accomplish anything. One thing I've learned using these here intarwebs, is there's a lot of user generated (NON UNION) entertainment to consume. Just like the last big strike left us in this reality show hell, I think production will find ways to produce content, and will be able to wait the unions out (thereby "winning" the right to shove another crappy contract down everyone's collective throats).

It's just really frustrating, as there's so much more money to be made out there, and production and unions just seem more interested in "winning"...

Anywho, read on. It is a great write up on what got us to this point and what the potential out comes could be.


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Bout Time the Unions Got Pissed! FIX RESIDUALS!!!

I know, they're technically "guilds"...

Out of the Hollywood Reporter yesterday, Borys Kit writes up a quick article about the WGA possibly hooking up with SAG and the DGA. I've been hearing grumblings of possible strikes happening, but lately it seems that the heat might be turning up soon.
While it would suck for the company I currently work with, I can't say I blame the unions.
Writers, as well as Actors and Directors, were hosed on home video, cable, DVD, interactive, and look to be getting screwed on VOD and "new media". I'm actually surprised that they didn't consider working together sooner...

"Unwilling to go on record for fear of staking out positions that haven't been officially sanctioned by the guild, a number of writers agreed to step forward on the condition of anonymity. Many already are getting their financial houses in order, others are writing furiously to finish scripts for companies that are stockpiling. But one theme comes through loud and clear, and it's a heated paraphrase of the great writer Paddy Chayefsky: Scribes are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it anymore."I think writers in general are getting sick of being kicked around. There's a lot of fury out there," says one screenwriter who writes for A-listers.
The big issue is money -- specifically, money as it relates to new technology such as Internet downloads and VOD."The model for Internet downloads shouldn't be any different than the model for pay-per-view, or the model for DVDs, or any other means of watching entertainment. What the fuck is the difference how someone watches it? If they're watching it and I've written it, I should get paid for it," the writer says."

Read the rest Here!
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