After weeks of negotiating during a time when commercial actors have seen themselves working harder for less pay, members of SAG-AFTRA have strongly approved a new deals for acting for television and radio commercials. This is the first national union contract that the combined SAG-AFTRA union voted on and was done primarily via electronic voting.
The contract overwhelmingly passed 96 percent to 4 percent in the voting. It will result in $238 million in wage increases, particularly for compensating actors for commercials that also appear on the Internet (overall wages will have a one-time six percent increase). It also contains stronger guidelines for so-called “reality commercials” that utilize non-actors and “crowd sourced” commercials, two trends that have been increasingly popular among advertisers. The Hollywood Reporter details many of the dozens of provisions in the new contract.
SAG-AFTRA co-president Ken Howard remarked, “The commercials agreements represent important gains for tens of thousands of our members across the country and address longstanding concerns which bring the commercials agreements up to date in a variety of areas.”
