SAG actors are voting “Yes” on the AFTRA Primetime TV deal. James Cromwell, Jason George, John D’Aquino, Tess Harper, Alan Blumenfeld, Gabrielle Carteris, & others, negotiated a strong AFTRA-Primetime-TV-contract-for-AFTRA-shows, improving upon the DGA/WGA pattern, and they urge you to vote “Yes.” 91% of the AFTRA National Board, the DGA, the L.A. Labor Federation, L.A./AFL-CIO, and the Mayor of Los Angeles, all recommend a “Yes” vote. This contract achieves:

1) Solid jurisdiction in new media.
2) Protection of actors’ rights to earn from clips.
3) 10.33% pay raises for 3-day players, top-of-show, & day players.
4) The highest medical & pension contributions in the industry at 15%.
5) More work for background players and pay improvements in all work categories.
Many gains result from specific SAG/AFTRA proposals direct from April W&W.

Calls to defeat this contract referendum come from the usual anti-merger fringe. And threats of a strike are ill-timed. In 2011 billions of dollars may be rolling in to industry coffers through new media. TV networks are certainly going to become dot-coms, but the necessary bandwidth & profits aren’t there yet. (For this reason AFTRA fought for and achieved a “Sunset” clause, helping us avoid the bad SAG/AFTRA deals made for home-video in the past.)

To threaten to strike this year over gas mileage, force majeure, and DVDs that are soon to be replaced by video-on-demand & downloads and are no longer the profit center for studios they once were, is short-sighted. SAG leaders must make a deal now and plan for the next contract cycle and stop wasting precious time blackmailing AFTRA and threatening to shut down Hollywood for no possible gain.

Actors: Keep Hollywood working. Vote “Yes” on the AFTRA Primetime TV Exhibit A Contract for AFTRA shows and mail in your ballot before the 4th of July.