DGA ratifies three-year contract

The Directors Guild of America announced today that its members overwhelmingly endorsed a new three-year contract. The agreement, which takes effect July 1, secured gains for directors in the area of Internet pay and paved the way for a similar pact between studios and writers that ended a 100-day strike. The guild has 13,500 members.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 20, 2008

Statement by Michael Apted
President of the Directors Guild of America
Announcing Ratification of the DGA Contract

LOS ANGELES - It is my great pleasure to announce that the DGA membership has overwhelmingly voted to ratify the new collective bargaining agreements between the DGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). 

The vote reflects the strong support and enthusiasm our members have for our new contract.  We won important gains such as higher wages, higher residual bases, significant improvements in basic cable, a more secure health plan, and solutions to problems affecting our ADs and UPMs. 

We also set a series of important precedents crucial to our survival in this digital age -- among them, jurisdiction in new media, a doubling of the home video rate as it applies to electronic sell-through, and the establishment of a gross based payment in ad-supported streaming while maintaining our historic fixed residuals where there is continued uncertainty about actual grosses.

We entered this round of bargaining steadfast in our belief, borne of 70 years of negotiating experience, that what would make it possible for us to achieve our goals was our 18 months of research and preparation, our understanding of the issues our industry faces, and our willingness to sit across the table and negotiate until a conclusion was reached. We also recognized that this was only the beginning of a series of difficult negotiations and that we are still years away from the time when new media will be our industry's dominant revenue source.

This was, is, and will continue to be our approach to collective bargaining in this digital age. We believe the results speak for themselves.