How Long For Striking Actors?
Commercial actors continue the strike they began Monday to protest attempts by advertisers to cut their pay.
They're on picket lines in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. But who are these people?
CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker says they're in your house every day, selling you everything from doughnuts to dot-coms on TV. But when they walked out— that was no act.
They're pitch people for the nation's booming businesses, who claim they can't afford the products they sell.
People think,"'If you're on TV, you must be famous and if you're on TV you must be rich.' Couldn't be further from the truth," says striking actor Todd Amodore.
"They want professional people," said striker Peaches Johnson, "but they want to pay us like we just came in off the street. That's my biggest complaint."
Correspondent Whitaker says the issue is black and white, according to the striking actors. Their contract hasn't changed since the days of just three networks, where they're paid each time an ad runs.
They're now demanding the same "pay for play" on the proliferating cable outlets and the Internet. Advertisers counter that more outlets mean higher costs, and they propose an across-the-board flat rate of pay.
"It no longer makes any sense to pay on a per-use basis, because the use doesn't deliver the same audience that a use delivered when this contract was formed," says John McGuinn a National Advertisers' negotiator. "We're trying to bring the contract up to the year 2000."
In L.A. Monday, picket lines quickly went up outside advertising agencies. They were ready for any commercial shoot employing nonunion actors or guild members failing to honor the strike.
"We're the working schmoes," said Eileen Henry, a member of the SAG negotiating committee. "We're not a bunch of prima donnas, we're not asking for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. We just want to make a living."
In N.Y., the strikers waved signs that said "Advertising Pays, Advertisers Don't."
"We are asking to be fairly compensated for the work we do," said Eileen Harris, vice president of the New York branch of the Screen Actors Guild. "We are the link between the advertising agencies, the advertiser and the community who buys the product."
Ad agencies want to replace the current plan with a flat rate payment. They contend that with the decline in network viewers, they must air the same commercial more often to reach the same audience. They say that union demands will raise the cost of cable TV commercials by 350 percent.
"The industry is disappointed that the unions have rejected the industry's fair and very lucrative economic offer, designed to modernize the commercials contract and provide economic stability to performers," said Ira Shepard, a Washington lawyer negotiating on behalf of the advertisers.
Actors say the advertisers' propsal would amount to a big cut in pay.
These issues are so important to the actors and the union that people you would not ordinarily associate with commercials are lending their support.
"Even though I don't support myself by doing commercials anymore," said actor William Baldwin, "I know they do. I recognize they do and I recognize how critically important it is to them and I completely support what they are doing."
Right now advertisers say they have enough commercials in the can to keep things rolling along. But, there is no end to the strike in sight.