Hurray! Screen Actors Guild Approve New Contract

Members of the Screen Actors Guild overwhelmingly approved a two-year contract with Hollywood studios on Tuesday, Nearly a year after their previous deal expired.

The membership of SAG officially ratified the new two-year TV/theatrical contract Tuesday by a margin of 78% to 22%, effective June 10 at 12:01 a.m., covering film, TV, digital and new media projects.

After a strike that cost hundreds of thousands of actors a number of jobs, not to mention much needed pay, the deal that was finally settled on is not the shiny new contract that had been promised by union leaders. Instead it is the contract that was originally offered, not only to the SAG, but to the Hollywood writers who went on strike last year.

The new contract contains $105 million in wage increases for union members, though, per studio estimates, actors have also lost out on about $80 million in raises by working under the terms of the old deal—which expired June 30, 2008—for the past 11 months.

The union, which represents about 110,000 performers, was bitterly divided over the proposed deal, which pitted top stars against the leadership.  SAG president Alan Rosenberg leading a hardline faction demanded better terms, especially for work carried on the Internet. While former SAG president Melissa Gilbert endorsed the deal, along with high-profile members like Tom Hanks, George Clooney, and Sally Field.

SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers hammered out a tentative deal in April, as SAG’s leadership—which believed it was getting screwed over financially in multiple ways—finally took a cue from its increasingly disgruntled membership and opted to put the terms to a vote.