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(28 Sep 2000) English/Nat

Title: Screen Actors Guild protest
Date: 27th September 2000
Location: New York City

Striking actors have vowed not to break off ongoing negotiations with the advertising industry in their long-running dispute over residual payments for television commercials.

At a raucous, news conference supported by stars like RICHARD DREYFUSS, SUSAN SARANDON, ROSIE O'DONNELL and JULIA ROBERTS, the actors said the talks would only stop if the advertising representatives left the table.

"We are not going away unless they go away first," said Dreyfuss, an Oscar winner for 'The Goodbye Girl'. "We are not going away until we get a fair deal," he vowed.

The actors are fighting over the issue of the pay-for-play formula. Used since the 1950s, it calculates residuals - the compensation owed to actors for network commercials based on the number of times those ads air. The unions want to extend residuals to include cable television. Advertisers want to do away with pay-for-play entirely and institute a flat rate for network and cable ads.

Union representatives said the federally mediated talks, which restarted on Sept. 18 after a two-month pause, were at "a critical juncture."

For the thousands of unknown actors and actresses the income generated by advertising work is the only way they can make a living whilst waiting for that big break.

SAG and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists represent about 135,000 actors, the vast majority of whom earn about $5,000 a year, union officials say. "Rank and file members are having trouble making a living and putting food on the table," SAG president William Daniels complained.

According to Tim Robbins, the stars were "here to show their support" for what he termed "a strike of working class and middle class people." But his partner Susan Sarandon and Treat Williams said the strike was not really about money. "What it's most about is basic human decency," Williams said. "This is one more time when the little guy is not going to roll over for corporate America," added Sarandon, who noted that she got her start in television commercials.

Rosie O'Donnell drew a few grumbles when she said advertisers are not in fact the enemy. She hosts what she herself referred to as "a very advertiser friendly (daytime television) program." She went on, "If you have made over $100,000 on a commercial, maybe you should stop getting residuals." But she thought that if any actors have made less than that then they should be entitled to get residuals "to have your family be fed. I think that's sort of the fair way to do it."

Also on hand were WILLIAM BALDWIN, MIA FARROW, MATTHEW MODINE, KEVIN BACON and JOHN TURTURRO.

The entertainment industry's first major work stoppage in 12 years has sharply curtailed TV advertising shoots in Los Angeles and New York, and union members are collectively losing out on nearly $2 million a day.

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