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Actors Seek Money Owed During Writers’ Strike
5-Jun-2008
Written by: Marques Camp
Obscure clause may provide relief for series regulars.
Because of an obscure provision in the contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood studios, actors displaced from work during the recent writers' strike may be owed more than $10 million in back pay, reports the Los Angeles Times.
SAG has filed claims against more than 80 shows, including hits such as CSI, Lost, and Ugly Betty, saying that series regulars from such shows are entitled to 2 1/2 week's pay for suspension due to "extraordinary circumstances" per a force majeure clause, including strikes.
"The employers have refused to live up to their contractual obligations and have instead attempted to shift the studios' financial obligations onto the backs of the actors who are their employees," said SAG general counsel Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.
SAG's claims were filed in February, shortly after the writers' strike ended. A ruling by a third-party arbitration panel, which SAG calls for, may not be made for up to six months, which provides little short term relief to those actors seriously affected by the writers' strike.
Though producers have suggested that actors individually negotiate their own force majeure clauses when they are hired, SAG does not agree.
Another smaller actors' union, the American Federation for Television and Radio Artists, did not follow the lead of SAG by filing force majeure claims. AFTRA negotiated their own pact with studios last week, which included pay gains for actors, but did not include an increase in residuals from DVD sales, or give actors a say when products are advertised on TV shows. AFTRA's contract is modeled on the contract that the writers recently signed, and SAG has criticized. The current contract between SAG and the studios expires June 30.
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