September 4, 2000 Features Never Mind the Bollocks BY BILL BOISVERT Here's the new Republican Party The Battle of Philadelphia BY DAVE LINDORFF Working It BY DAVID MOBERG Will unions go all out for Gore? Black Radicals Regroup BY SALIM MUWAKKIL Detroit hosts the Black Radical Congress. Mad Sheep Scare BY TERRY J. ALLEN Farmers, scientists and the USDA square off in Vermont. News Cleaning Up BY HANS JOHNSON Missouri, Oregon consider campaign finance initiatives. Star Strike BY BEN WINTERS Actors demand a better deal. Renegade or Redeemer? BY STEVE ELLNER Hugo Chavez leads Venezuela into a new era. The New Front BY KARI LYDERSEN American anti-abortion groups crusade in Ireland. Profile BY TED KLEINE Johnny Lira is in their corner. Views Editorial BY DAVID MOBERG Big money problems. Appall-O-Meter BY DAVID FUTRELLE A Terry Laban Cartoon Dialogue: The Balkans More Conspiracy Theories? BY EDWARD S. HERMAN A Humanitarian Crusade BY DIANA JOHNSTONE Culture A Man for All Seasons BY HOWARD ZINN Francis Wheen's Marx: A Life. Interstate Rambler BY PHILIP CONNORS On the road with Larry McMurty. England's Dreaming BY JOHN GHAZVINIAN History falls off the back of a lorry. Under the Influence BY JASON SHOLL Sadie Plant writes on drugs. Vanishing Act BY JOSHUA ROTHKOPF Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man. Presidential Dance Parties BY GREG SMITHSIMON

Star Strike By Ben Winters Chicago Richard Dreyfuss spoke at a New York rally on the first day of the actors' strike. Credit: Peter Morgan/Reuters. For more than a decade, members of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) have been grumbling about their contract with advertisers. Last year they made William Daniels their president on the strength of his promise to negotiate a better deal. The moment of truth came May 1, when Daniels led SAG - along with its sister union the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) - into a strike that has become the longest walkout in the union's history. Three months later, there's no end in sight. Actors and other workers are looking to modernize the system under which performers are paid for commercial work, they just can't agree on how to do it. Actors in network television commercials (and those in radio spots) have long been governed by a "pay-for-play" arrangement, under which they receive a check each time their performance is aired. Actors in cable commercials, by contrast, receive a flat fee only. In April's negotiations, SAG/AFTRA asked that the pay-for-play scheme be extended to cable, a suggestion advertising industry representatives categorically rejected. Advertisers want the opposite: to banish pay-for-play entirely and replace it with increased flat fees. Meeting periodically under federal mandate, the two sides have had zero success in narrowing the gulf. Many in the rank and file see advertisers' intransigence as a strategy to break the unions. Despite the celebrity status of many union members, attracting press has been a major stumbling block. The unions' adversary is an industry that creates messages for a living, and possesses a natural advantage in television coverage. "When you're on strike against the companies that control and subsidize the media," says SAG/AFTRA Midwest spokeswoman Linda Swenson, "it's difficult to get the word out."   TOP HOME SUBSCRIBE MAIL   In These Times © 2000 Vol. 24, No. 20