Actors Strike Unresolved, Taking Financial Toll
Aug. 8 -- Now in its 15th week, the strike by commercial actors is the longest in the union’s history and is nowhere near resolution.
And while that’s bad news for the thousands of actors who work in front of the camera, it’s also a crisis for the thousands others who normally work behind the scenes.
They’re so far apart they don’t even agree on who ended the last negotiating session.
“They refuse to speak to us,” says Ilyanne Kichhaven, a spokeswoman for the Screen Actors Guild.
“All it takes is that they give us a call,” says Ira Shepard, counsel to the Joint Policy Committee, the bargaining arm of the advertising industry.
Residual Issue
SAG and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists want actors to receive residuals each time a commercial airs, even on the Internet or cable television. The advertisers, however, want a one-time payment and fewer restrictions on Internet usage.
The residuals ensure that if a commercial is wildly successful for a company, the actor shares in that success and is compensated for any overexposure the actor may suffer for being closely identified with a single product. Shepard, however, said the advertisers’ offer would grant a 17 percent raise for an actor in a typical commercial.
The costs are felt most deeply in Los Angeles and New York, centers of commercial production.
“Commercial production was very strong in Los Angeles, and rising. The economy was taking off and dot-com spending was increasing,” says Morrie Goldman, the spokesman for the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. “Then you sort of hit a wall.
“We estimate the impact at about a $1 million a day for the city of Los Angeles,” he says.
Impact Behind the Camera
Among those suffering are workers in affiliated industries.
“I used to turn down five jobs a day. Now the phone doesn’t even ring,” says Josh Kuhn, the owner of a Hollywood-based catering business Josh’s Nosh, which until a few months ago worked exclusively with film productions. Now he’s seeking out work in office buildings.
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