By Chris Neumer

Corporate America’s treatment of the little guys has never exactly been fair, but the current situation involving the commercial branch of the Screen Actor’s Guild took this idea to a new degree during the ‘90’s.

The basic language of the current SAG contract was written in 1964, a time when there were only three national networks and thoughts of cable television or the Internet were decades away. However, as time and technology progressed, the essentials of the SAG contract with the ad industry remained the same: the actors in TV commercials only received residuals for their work when their commercials appeared on CBS, NBC, or ABC; the actors received a flat fee if their commercials appeared on cable, regardless of the number of times the commercial was run, or on how many different channels it was shown, essentially leaving the commercial actors unpaid for their work once it made it to cable or premium channels like HBO.

While at first this agreement between the ad industry and SAG might not seem overwhelmingly in favor of one side or the other, one must take into consideration the nature of commercials, and the fact that smaller actors (like the Snack Wells guy) run the risk of being overexposed and typecast by frequent airings of their commercials (like the Snack Wells guy). With no contractual obligation to give residuals to the actors, corporations are able to show the old commercials repeatedly for a far cheaper cost than actually producing new ones.

Tired of being slighted in this fashion–especially with ad sales up more than 22% for the coming TV season–and wanting to clarify the nature of Internet run commercials, the members of the commercial SAG went on strike, effective May 1 of this year.

At the time this made for some minor headlines, especially when Tiger Woods, a commercial SAG actor himself, vowed not to cross the picket lines. Shaquille O’Neal took a different road, proudly exclaiming that he was going to DisneyWorld after the Lakers won the NBA championship in June. This action angered most of the other SAG members, given that O’Neal doesn’t exactly need Disney’s extra cash to put food on his table.

Since May 1, talks between the SAG and the Joint Policy Commission haven’t ever really gotten off the ground. The ad industry refuses to budge on several key points that SAG is asking for in their new contract, causing theatrical and television actors to take pause, wondering if this summer’s strike is merely a (picket) sign of things to come next June, when the theatrical and television SAG contracts come up for renewal.

For the most part, with O’Neal’s exception, members of the different SAGs have remained united, with stars Nicolas Cage, Helen Hunt, Tom Hanks and Kevin Spacey all donating large sums of money to assist the striking members of the commercial SAG. Stay tuned, this is just starting to get interesting.

For more information on the SAG strike visit www.sag.org