Reed Smith Negotiates Ad Industry Deal With Actors

[Omaha Steve]

http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/04/reed-smith-sag-aftra-ad-deal.html

April 2, 2009 6:21 PM
Action! Reed Smith Negotiates Ad Industry Deal With Actors

Posted by Brian Baxter

Two of the nation's largest actors' union announced on Wednesday that they had reached a three-year deal with advertising industry groups on a new contract.

The tentative contracts, hashed out during five weeks of sometimes contentious negotiations at New York City's Crowne Plaza Hotel in Times Square, involved members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).

SAG and AFTRA represent a combined total of about 135,000 actors, but the contract at issue here is only for actors that work in commercials.

Heading up the negotiation team across the table for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), an industry group comprising more than 300 companies, was Reed Smith partner Douglas Wood (right). It was the second such deal Wood has closed for ANA; like most others, it went down to the wire.

"It was seven days a week, 10 or 12 hours a day," Wood says. "It never ceases to amaze me how unbelievably inefficient labor negotiations are. Everything is decided in the last 48 to 72 hours, but they really can't be done differently any other way."

FULL story at link.