George Clooney calls for Hollywood truce

George Clooney has called for a truce between warring Hollywood actors' unions feuding over contract negotiations with studios.

The Oscar-winning actor stepped into the row after a tense few days in which A-list stars lined up on opposing sides of the increasingly ugly dispute.

The Screen Actors Guild wants actors who are members of both unions to reject a deal the smaller American Federation of Television & Radio Artists has reached with the major Hollywood studios. SAG believes members should hold out for a better deal, even if this means going on strike. The unions’ contracts with the studios expire on June 30.

Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey, Sally Field and Alec Baldwin are among the stars urging support for the new AFTRA-negotiated contract. Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Martin Sheen and Viggo Mortensen, meanwhile, are among more than 60 celebrities pushing for its defeat.

The escalating feud has left a rattled Hollywood fearing a repeat of the 100-day writers’ strike that brought the industry to a standstill last winter.

Clooney took the position of a mediator in a two-page statement released yesterday. “At the risk of being yet another actor giving his opinion about the ongoing fight between SAG and AFTRA, I’m hoping that there might be a way out of this,” he wrote. “Rather than pitting artist against artist, maybe we could find a way to get what both unions are looking for.

“What we can’t do is pit artist against artist … because the one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power of the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers).”

Clooney acknowledges the stance of both unions and steers a course between the two, stressing that while “work stoppage will do a great deal of harm – that doesn’t mean just roll over and give the producers what they want.”

Instead he urges “diligence” and outlines two suggestions he thinks could help. One would see the creation of a panel of high-profile A-listers such as Hanks and Nicholson, “ten people that the studio heads don’t often say ‘no’ to”, who could “walk in the door with all the new data that SAG and AFTRA compile, and adjust the pay for actors… once a year.”

Secondly, he suggests collecting higher union dues from mega-rich stars. “Right now, there’s a cap of 6,000 bucks that actors pay their union … based on $1 million in earnings. Make it $6,000 for every million … if someone makes $20 million, they pay $120,000 into the union. That could go a long way in helping pensions and health care.”

Under AFTRA’s deal, actors would get pay increases. But SAG says the contract fails to meet some key demands. It claims rejecting it will not necessarily lead to a strike but could get the unions working together on a new contract. Others say this is unlikely, given the current level of rancour. The two had negotiated jointly with the studios for almost three decades until this year’s split.

Clooney, one of the industry’s biggest and most respected stars, notes he has “been very lucky in my career” and no longer has to rely on a union to look after his pension and royalty payments. But, he adds, one day he may again and “that means it’s my responsibility to look out for actors who are trying to stay afloat from year-to-year. Anything less is irresponsible of me.”

The statement marks the actor’s first public comment on the feud. At the end of the writers’ strike in February, he joined Hanks, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro in an advert calling on the unions to begin negotiations with the studios as soon as possible to avoid another stoppage.

Clooney, who comes from a family of entertainers, concludes: “To be sure, I’m not the brightest bulb out there. So maybe someone has a lot better idea … I just happen to believe so strongly in both unions … my father, my mother, aunt, uncle, even cousins were all members of either SAG or AFTRA long before me.”