SAG, studios in agreement.(World)(Screen Actors Guild)(Brief article)

Following nearly a year of battle, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) has finally reached a tentative agreement with U.S. studios for a new labor contract, putting an end to a war that has shaken up the entertainment industry during one of the worst economic crises in years.

The agreement between SAG and the studios provides actors, who have been working without a contract since last summer, a two-year pact that the union's president has already promised to oppose when it goes for member ratification this month. But it also spells relief for 120,000 actors who have been facing a worsening job climate due to a drop in film and television production in recent months.

The proposed agreement, which grants a 3.5 percent annual pay increase and established fees for shows currently streamed on the Internet, was pretty much the same contract the studios offered last summer--before news of the economy grew bleaker by the day. The negotiations, which began last year, eventually left SAG in a weaker position because it split the union into two opposing factions and pushed most new TV shows toward a rival actors' union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which negotiated its own new contract last year. Since then, AFTRA has essentially taken over new TV production, signing on for the vast majority of primetime broadcast TV pilots this season--a worrisome development for SAG, which has customarily ruled primetime TV.

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