July 7, 2014
By Neal Tepel
Los Angeles, California – SAG-AFTRA settled a contract with Hollywood producers on Friday July 4th citing significant gains. The contract is the first with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers since the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists merged in 2012.
“Unifying the legacy SAG and AFTRA contracts was essential and I am very pleased that we were able to achieve that,” said SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard in a message that he and National Executive Director David White sent to the union's 165,000 members. “As important, we have established an industry-wide, basic cable agreement – something we have wanted for two decades. “We've also secured a very competitive wage package for members and a large bump in our pension, health and retirement contributions,” Howard said.
The new pact unifies the separate SAG and AFTRA primetime TV contracts, and includes the first industry-wide agreement in basic cable live-action production. Members will receive wage increases of 8.5%, compounding to 8.7% over the three-year term. The agreement includes raises in network primetime residuals ceilings and increases in the streaming residual rate for ad-supported video on demand. Other gains include an increase to the rate paid to performers for streaming product, a reduction in the free streaming window from 17 days to 7 days, and improved residuals formulas. Producers will further contribute an additional 0.5% to the Pension, Health and Retirement plans which will help stabilize these funds.
The raises and pension contributions are in line with earlier deals that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers negotiated with the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America. The union's negotiating committee will be recommending the package to the National Board of Directors on Saturday, July 12. If approved, it would then go to the membership for approval.
