DGA Speaks Up About New Media

Dave McNary reports in today's Variety that the DGA--a union that generally likes to fly below the radar--is touting its very own new-media deal, the one negotiators forged with producers in January and established a template that other unions have since followed--namely, the WGA and AFTRA.

As you might have heard, SAG is not ready to squeeze itself into that template just yet, and wants union jurisdiction in all new-media projects made by any member of the AMPTP.  But DGA president Michael Apted, in the guild's monthly magazine, wrote a letter that seems to rebuke SAG's recalcitrance. SAG's Doug Allen didn't take too kindly to the suggestion.

The new-media template goes like this: unions get jurisdiction in new-media projects with costs greater than $15,000 per minute, $300,000 per program, or $500,000 per series. If costs fall below those thresholds, a union (in this case the DGA) can still have jurisdiction if one of its members is helming it. The same applies for WGA scribes and AFTRA performers.

Michael Apted, president of the DGA, wrote in the current issue, "We must be flexible to allow that experimentation to flourish.... Critics of this approach argue that union jurisdiction must be absolute. If some productions are allowed to be non-union, they claim, producers will take advantage of the loopholes, and eventually, all productions will be non-union. But before there can be a union job, there has to be a job. And despite all the grandiose talk about the coming bonanza, new media hasn't yet started raining money."

In response, Doug Allen, SAG's executive director, told McNary: "I think what really stands logic on its head is the idea that the way to organize union work is to encourage signatories to produce non-union under our contracts. It is not appropriate to wait until new media reigns supreme to assert jurisdiction."

You can read McNary's full report here.

--Andrew Salomon