SAG Calls for Guild Contracts Overseas

To the Screen Actors Guild, all the world’s a sound stage. Or at least it wants producers and studios to think that way.

So starting Wednesday, the 98,000-member union will pressure producers and studios, mostly by using the clout of its major stars, to offer SAG members the equivalent of a union contract whenever they shoot films and TV shows in foreign countries.

The campaign, called Global Rule One, seeks to require SAG members to refuse to act in foreign productions if they aren’t offered a SAG contract. Members who violate it risk sanctions, fines or even expulsion from the union.

In the past, SAG has enforced its basic rule of conduct for actors only in U.S. productions. But with the explosion in recent years of film and TV shows shot in Canada, Australia and Mexico--as well as such areas as Ireland, Morocco and Eastern Europe, which have seen recent filming booms--SAG wants to make sure actors at least get SAG-like contracts whenever they must travel.

SAG contracts require such things as contributions by producers to the union’s health and pension fund, minimum guaranteed pay rates, residual payments when work is rerun and an array of work rules including safety measures, rest periods and what kind of penalty a producer pays if an actor is required to work through a meal.

Honoring a SAG contract overseas “shouldn’t even be an issue,” said Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey, one of the leaders in the campaign. The extra costs for movie studios would be tiny, “probably less than 3% of the entire budget of a film,” Spacey said.

But U.S. producers and studios and Canadian production companies are gearing up to fight the campaign, complaining that the union wants to exceed the reach of its contract without negotiating at the bargaining table.

“It’s a violation to adopt or promote a rule which would violate the collective bargaining agreement,” said J. Nicholas Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the labor-negotiating arm of major Hollywood studios and producers.

SAG estimates that 1,500 of its actors work in foreign productions in a typical year, and that producers avoid paying about $7 million to the union’s health and pension fund. Major stars probably won’t benefit from the campaign because they have the negotiating leverage to get deals that far exceed the benefits of the guild contract.

Nonetheless, some of Hollywood’s biggest actors have been recruited to use their clout by insisting that producers who want them in foreign productions cut a deal with SAG first. The growing list of names includes Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson, Clint Eastwood, Sarah Michelle Gellar and cast members from such hit TV shows as “The West Wing” and “The Sopranos.”

SAG estimates that about 40 TV series, 125 movies of the week and 60 feature films are shot annually in foreign countries.

Some of those offer SAG contracts anyway. “Gladiator,” which was shot in Morocco, Italy, Malta and Britain, used 80 SAG members who had guild contracts, the union said. Recent productions that didn’t have SAG contracts included “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Mummy Returns” and George Lucas’ latest “Star Wars” films, although individual actors in those films may have negotiated deals to give them SAG contracts, the union said. Actors who didn’t have SAG contracts won’t be penalized because the films were shot before the campaign started.

Counter believes that some of SAG’s criticism is unfair, noting that SAG actors who work in Canada can have pension and health contributions made to the union’s fund on their behalf through an arrangement with the Alliance of Canadian Television and Radio Artists.

SAG argues that studios frequently set up shell companies to expressly avoid offering SAG contracts, which Counter denies. But SAG Chief Executive Robert Pisano said he knows firsthand that it happens because he helped set them up as an executive in the 1980s at Paramount Pictures and in the 1990s at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

SAG officials argue that opposition from studios and producers is disingenuous because they agreed in contract negotiations to a clause that says they will “continue to use their best efforts to provide the protection of the Screen Actors Guild contract for American performers working outside of the United States.”

Counter insists that studios and producers do that when possible. He said that although his members must offer actors SAG contracts because they signed the guild’s collective bargaining agreement, they also buy films and TV shows from foreign companies that will be forced to raise prices if they are required to offer the union contract.

Entertainment lawyer Alan Brunswick of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in Los Angeles believes the issue reflects the growing frustration actors have in trying to stem the growth in runaway production, and predicts that the issue may well end up being decided in court.

Spacey said that the issue is one of fairness and that the debate “unfortunately ... comes down to greed.” He noted that studios and producers allow members of the Directors Guild of America to be covered by their guild’s contract wherever they shoot in foreign countries. He said actors should be extended the same rights.

“An actor should never have to be put in a position where someone can say, ‘By the way, we’re not going to pay your health benefits or give you residuals, and you’re not going to have a SAG contract,’” Spacey said.