SAG Undercuts Employment Opportunities For Actors

As we all know, the American economy is currently battling double digit unemployment. The current unemployment rate is 10% and most major economists believe it will go higher. The Screen Actor’s Guild which has over 100,000 members would love to see an unemployment rate that low. On any average day, their unemployment rate is probably over 80%.

Of course, you can argue that many members of the Guild should not even be actors and that is why they are unemployed. You can also argue there is not enough demand for 100,000 actors and a large percentage will always be unemployed. Both of these are somewhat true. However, if the Screen Actor’s Guild (‘SAG’) made life easier for the producer and its own members, many more actors would have steadier employment; especially the ones who can actually act.

SAG has jurisdiction against producers only within the boundaries of the USA. They are not recognized outside of the United States and hence have no controls. Many other countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia have their own actor’s unions which are considered sister unions of SAG. Because of this lack of jurisdiction, SAG cannot force producers to shoot movies outside the USA under its collective bargaining agreement.

However, there is a clause in the SAG agreement that every actor becomes obligated to when he/she becomes a member of the union. That clause states in substance that “by joining the union, I agree not to work as an actor on a film or television show that does not agree to abide by the SAG collective bargaining agreement.” This is SAG Rule One and its enforcement overseas is now known as Global Rule One.

Prior to the turn of the Century, SAG never enforced Rule One outside of the USA. An American or foreign producer was free to hire SAG actors to shoot a film in Eastern Europe or anywhere else, and did not have to conform to the SAG collective bargaining agreement which, as you know from a prior article written by me, is a nightmare to an independent producer.

The stature of the actor was not an issue. You could hire an “A” list movie star or a scale character actor and hire them for whatever rate the actor was willing to work for. Plus, you could fly an actor coach, pay them a smaller per diem and not be forced to conform to SAG’s rules regarding turnarounds and meal penalties. Hence, it was a free market to both the producer and the actor outside of the United States. As a result, American actors were hired all the time to work on overseas productions regardless of the country of origin of the project.

In approximately 2002, SAG decided it was going to enforce Rule One everywhere in the world. SAG told its members that if they worked non-union outside of the United States, they would be subject to discipline by the union whether they made one million dollars or one dollar on a film.

The rationale SAG gave its members for this change in policy was it would increase SAG employment and help actors qualify for the health plan by allowing them to make the minimum amount of dollars necessary for qualification in the plan. The “evil” producers were taking advantage of helpless actors, and forced them to work long hours on non-union overseas productions. They were not paying contributions to the health plan. SAG and its members would benefit from this new policy.

What has happened is exactly the opposite. SAG members are not being employed overseas unless they are the one or two actors that help finance the movie ( i.e. the stars). The rest of the actors are coming from other countries so that the acting fees come within the boundaries of the budget. The bottom line being that SAG costs the producer more money and sometimes, especially in current economic times, the producer cannot afford the extra cost.

For example, the SAG agreement states that on all overseas production, the actor must be flown first class. To Europe that can amount to as much as $15,000. The same price is true for Asia, give or take. A business class ticket runs about $5,000 and a coach class ticket can be as low as $1,000 depending upon the time of year.

If you are a producer of a film shooting in Eastern Europe and you have a part for an actor that works two weeks, are you going to hire a SAG actor at $2,900 per week plus overtime (SAG minimum) if the airfare to get that actor to the location is more than $10,000? Of course not. You may bite the bullet for the SAG actor if the airfare is $1,000, but not for almost twice the acting fee.

So, what does the cost conscious and proper producer do? He hires a British or local actor for the same amount or sometimes even a slightly higher fee because the overall cost is less. The quality does not suffer, but the employment of SAG actors does.

The amount of English speaking films that shoot outside the United States is probably twice that of those that shoot in the United States. Each of these films has approximately 10-20 speaking roles that would go to SAG actors if SAG would stop enforcing Rule One. Instead SAG actors are not being hired and their employment rates stay low.

Does this make sense? No. Does anything the Entertainment Unions do make sense, no. Do these unions care about their members or their employment? Sometimes, I wonder.

I realize this article is not something that fits the usual tone of this column. However since I do make a living as a Hollywood producer, occasionally I will write about my industry. This is the first of such articles. I hope you enjoy them as they will be told with my usual political leanings in mind.