Agreement

This has been a long time coming.

SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP (representing studios and producers) reached an agreement on a new three-year theatrical and television contract, the parties announced early Friday morning. Although terms were not released, the new SAG-AFTRA deal apparently unifies the union’s legacy SAG and AFTRA primetime television contracts, which have persisted despite a merger of the unions two years ago.

The previous contract expired midnight June 30, but was extended three times in 24-hour increments. The deal was announced an hour and a half after the third extension expired. ...

The AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA have been weeks and weeks at the negotiating table. They started early to try and reach a resolution, but failed to do so. There was, from the reports we received, a lot of wheel-spinning.

It was only after expiration of the old Collective Bargaining Agreement (apparently) that the ice jam began to break up.

The IATSE (our mother international) and the Animation Guild will negotiate new deals next Spring and Summer. The contract deals already reached by SAG-AFTRA, WGA, and DGA will have an impact of where we ultimately go with ours in 2015.

Add On: Then there's this from Deadline:

Leaders of SAG-AFTRA, calling their new film and TV contract “historic,” have something to celebrate this Fourth of July. The tentative new contract, reached early this morning after two months of hard bargaining, achieved the major goal of the union going into the talks: the merger of its two separate TV contracts.

When SAG-AFTRA merged in 2012, it was stuck with two separate pension and health plans and two separate TV contracts, which allowed TV producers to shop for the best terms. This anomaly created a landslide of producers rushing to shoot their projects under AFTRA’s TV contract, which was threatening to dry up employer contributions to SAG’s pension and health plan.

The new contract also achieved the first industry-wide agreement for performers in basic cable production, which now will be incorporated into the new Television Agreement. ...

Add On Too: The Nikkster (at her new site) has a dour view of the new pact:

... SAG-AFTRA followed the WGA and the always employer-compliant DGA in announcing that its negotiators reached a new 3-year pact Hollywood contract negswith the studios and networks. All three guilds are getting the same annual minimum increases: 2.5% the first year, and 3% in years two and three, plus an 0.5% increase in the Alliance Of Motion Picture And Television Producers’ contribution to the Pension Fund effective right away.

Frankly, that sucks. Did I mention that the current inflation rate jumped to 2.13% in May?

Here’s what also sucks for SAG-AFTRA: the basic rates. Remember, this was the first film and TV contract which the merged union bargained. Before the negotiations, the leadership’s stated goal was to combine the 2 separate TV contracts with the networks/studios and bring SAG’s basic rates up 3.5% to match AFTRA’s. “We certainly don’t want to lower AFTRA’s to SAG’s," a SAG-AFTRA official claimed.

Well that’s exactly what happened, folks. ...