An Open Letter To The Entertainment Industry
Our industry has worked hard this year to make six major labor agreements. These six agreements were intensely fought and aggressively negotiated by all sides, with major compromises made by everyone involved. Now, with all the other Guilds and Unions having accomplished so much, SAG is demanding that the entire industry literally throw out all of its hard work because it believes it deserves more than the 230,000 other working people in the industry.
To comply with SAG's demands would mean SAG merits more than everyone else. Saying yes would jeopardize the trust we have so carefully established with the rest of the industry -- at a time when this industry needs stability to ensure that together, we effectively evolve with shifting consumer demands. To say yes to SAG would be to repudiate the hard work and compromises made by every other labor organization in the industry over the past ten months.
Because of SAG's failed negotiating strategy, our industry now faces the prospect of another destructive and unnecessary strike. Incredibly, this SAG strike would occur at a time when the national economy is reeling from a historic financial crisis. Just as stunningly, a SAG strike would be self-defeating from the start - with actors losing more within the first several days of the strike than they could ever hope to gain.
We have made SAG members a fair offer, the same deal we have successfully offered to all the other Guilds and Unions, and we kept that offer on the table for now despite the rapid worldwide economic decline. We hope that every concerned member of our industry will study carefully the terms of our offer -- and then think long and hard about whether, at a time when millions of Americans are facing extreme financial hardship, there is anything about our offer that justifies a debilitating strike.
We are standing firm behind our offer because it represents a pattern of hard fought agreements of the past year, and its construct is vital to the future of our industry. No single Guild or Union should be allowed to undermine the hard-won consensus over how our industry can experiment and then prosper in the speedily changing new media marketplace.
Signed,
Peter Chernin, Chairman and CEO, the Fox Group
Brad Grey, Chairman & CEO, Paramount Pictures Corp.
Robert A. Iger, President & CEO, The Walt Disney Company
Michael Lynton, Chairman & CEO, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Barry M. Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros.
Leslie Moonves, President & CEO, CBS Corp.
Harry Sloan, Chairman & CEO, MGM
Jeff Zucker, President & CEO, NBC Universal
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
On behalf of the 350 producers of motion pictures and television
currently represented in negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild