Playbill On-Line has learned that commercial contract talks will resume on Oct. 19 in New York City between the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the advertising industry's Joint Policy Committee.
The restart of talks comes on the heels of a planned boycott of Proctor and Gamble products by the actors' unions and 13.1 million union members affiliated with the A.F.L.C.I.O.
The coincidental timing of both pieces of news leads to speculation about the impact of a major national boycott and the possibility that the advertising industry might wish to avoid such an action at any cost.
Last week, Playbill On-Line reported on a possible link between Proctor and Gamble and the Joint Policy Committee, suggesting P&G had a leadership role in the JPC because of its size and influence and because P&G's policy of never giving more than a single digit raise (under ten percent) in any cost mirrored similar actions evident in the commercial contract talks between the JPC and actors.
The single digit theme used to identify P&G with the JPC could be carried one step further to suggest that if single digit shifts are that critical to a company as large as P&G, the possibility of a strike might be devastating to the corporation's bottom line. P&G is scheduled to hold a shareholders meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio today. -- By Murdoch McBride