While music, dancing, and food took center stage, Eileen Willenborg, executive director of the joint Chicago offices of SAG and AFTRA, spoke briefly to the hard work and tenacity of the rank-and-file members who kept the strike strong. "This is an absolute victory," she said, referring to the provisions of the new contract now being voted on by mail across the country.

The joint boards of SAG and AFTRA have voted overwhelmingly to recommend ratification to the union membership. Key improvements in the television commercials contract include recognition of SAG and AFTRA’s jurisdiction of commercials recorded for the Internet, preservation of pay-per-play residual structure on network broadcasts, improved payment by 20 percent of Spanish-language programs use, and other improvements for the health and retirement funds and background actors ("extras"). The radio contract proposal has similar improvements. The advertisers had hoped to keep the union out of the Internet territory and push the union back on the longstanding pay-per-play method of compensation.

The unionists’ daily actions since May 1 were instrumental in forcing concessions from the advertising giants. In the course of the strike, Willenborg remarked, "we learned we’re a union. Not a guild, not a federation, but a real union."

In thanking the other unions, she referred to the many actions where SAG and AFTRA members were able to shut down construction and production at the buildings and factories belonging to major advertisers, like Ford and AT&T, who were shooting scab commercials during the strike. "The Teamsters taught us how to hold a picket line, how to turn around the Teamster trucks from the gates."

Dale Inghram, an active member of the Strike Force committee, described a 30-hour action at the Ford Torrence plant on Chicago’s South Side in mid-October. It took only 10-15 members at a time to cause Ford managers to shut down the plant for lack of parts when Teamsters refused to cross the picket line. More than 2,000 members of the United Auto Workers were sent home that day. "I had so much fun I stayed for 15 hours. Everyone was so serious, but when the TV cameras were on me I just said, "They’re leaving! They’re leaving!" Inghram said. "We learned a lot from other unions, and I think they learned a lot from us too."

Claudia Hommel is a member of Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.  
 
 
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