The Details the Moguls Don't Want You to Know

Comments (0) By Nikki Finke Wednesday, Jul 2 2008

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At Sony, Rosenberg and Allen sat down with Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Michael Lynton, considered a moderate among the moguls, and Jean Bonini, seen as a militant among the labor lawyers. Among the points made by the Two Allens were their extreme disappointment that the moguls negotiated first with smaller AFTRA and left bigger SAG waiting in the wings. Lynton expressed disapproval at SAG’s intent to oppose the AFTRA contract. “Our view was that the best place to focus their energies would be in the AMPTP negotiations,” a Sony insider told me.

When told that moguls like himself refusing to get involved would prolong the de facto strike in Hollywood, not shorten it, Lynton turned angry and pounded the table with one hand, declaring, ‘Do you think I like having my production facilities idle?”

Photo by Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

The Two Allens: SAG's Doug Allen and Alan Rosenberg want the moguls to get involved.

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So it came as a huge surprise to SAG leadership when, on June 18, a story on the Variety Web site was headlined, “Chernin, Iger May Resume SAG Roles.” Doug Allen immediately left Iger a phone message asking whether this was an invitation. Iger called him back five days later and reiterated that the moguls were staying out.

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Iger and Allen had a prickly conversation. I’m told that Iger asked, “Why don’t you just take what the writers and directors took?” To which Allen responded, “Just because we’re the last ones at the table doesn’t mean we don’t get our turn at the table.”

There has been no mogul/Allens communication since, I’m told.

So right now the studios and networks claim to be counting on their AMPTP negotiators, even though, during the starting day of the AMPTP-SAG official negotiations, SAG sources told me that “the first thing that came out of Nick Counter’s mouth was, ‘These proposals are unreasonable. Well, I guess you’d better prepare for a strike.’”

All during the writers strike, the dilemma for the AMPTP had been the incessant murmuring throughout Hollywood of “Wait for SAG.” SAG is the most powerful Hollywood union — its members collectively earned more than $4 billion during the 2005–2008 TV/theatrical contract. Somehow the AMPTP had to undermine the union’s strength. The employers’ cartel found a willing and ambitious collaborator, AFTRA, whose earnings over the past three years on the same contract totaled only $40 million. (SAG contracts represent 99 percent, AFTRA just 1 percent.)

Whatever AFTRA negotiated or didn’t negotiate should have been a mere afterthought. Instead, the AMPTP and AFTRA claimed that the smaller union’s tentative deal should be the template for SAG in these negotiations. “On what planet?” a SAG insider bitched to me. “Well, one where AFTRA wants to undercut SAG rates and sell out actors to secure more jurisdiction. For all the cries that SAG is the ‘membership first’ guild, AFTRA’s weak deal makes it the producers’ choice. SAG really is the only true union actors have. The AMPTP’s strategy is to make AFTRA a low-cost union alternative.”

Of course, the moguls tell me they won’t exploit AFTRA’s new contract to give it preference over SAG for jurisdiction over new TV shows. Oh, puh-leeze. “I suppose we could. It’s doubtful. But it could happen. I don’t see us trying to stick it to SAG. But it is in our rights to do that,” one network honcho mused to me.

The AMPTP walked away from SAG in May in order to make a deal with AFTRA. When talks resumed, the AMPTP refused to even offer the WGA deal or the AFTRA deal. Instead, the cartel forced SAG to start at the beginning. Says a SAG board insider, “Doug and Alan are really just disappointed in these people that they’re truly are so juvenile. They’re not willing to even make the deal they made in the past. Why does the union submit to this process when it’s such a colossal waste of time?” Another SAG source gripes, “The employers have dragged everything out in order to slow the pace of negotiations while furiously dialing the media to background them on how the SAG team is not taking it seriously.”

SAG insists it has made concessions and will tweak some more. The biggest surprise came three weeks into the process when SAG agreed to withdraw its demand to double residuals from DVD sales and instead ask for what would effectively be a 15 percent hike in DVD pay. But SAG complains that the AMPTP has not made counterproposals. “Truly, they have not tried to negotiate at all,” a SAG board member gripes. “Obviously, their only job description is ‘Don’t make a deal.’”

WHILE NICK COUNTER’S METHODOLOGY is to craftily and contemptuously maneuver the unions into negotiating against themselves and into taking issues off the table just for the promise of AMPTP bargaining, he and the other reps go on and on about how there’s nothing they’d like more than to be partners with SAG.