Tiger backs striking actors

Join the club: Tiger lends his support to actors

Golf superstar Tiger Woods has come out in support of striking actors in the US.

Woods, the world number one, cancelled a TV advertising shoot for Nike when he learned of the protest surrounding a pay dispute.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists unions had threatened to picket the country club where the ad was due to be filmed.

The two unions came out on strike on Monday over residual payments earned by actors in TV commercials.

Not an act: US performers on strike over TV ads pay

Advertisers want to change the current system, where performers are paid each time their commercial is shown, by introducing flat-rate payments.

Together the two unions represent 135,000 actors and Woods, like many athletes endorsing products on TV, is a member of the Screen Actors Guild.

SAG spokesman Greg Krizman said: "Tiger Woods is an important and respected spokesperson and a positive role model for millions, not only in America but around the world."

SAG spokesman Greg Krizman said: "By withholding his services to commercial producers at this time, he is standing together with the thousands of working class SAG and AFTRA performers who depend on a fair commercials contract to maintain a decent standard of life."

Picket lines

Commercial producers and advertisers say they plan to keep making ads by using non-union members and filming abroad.

Their chief negotiator, John McGuinn, claimed the strikers were breaching US labour laws by telling people if they crossed the picket lines, their careers were finished.

The dispute is the biggest stoppage to affect the entertainment industry since 1988, when the actors' unions staged an 18-day strike against the advertisers.

In the same year, the Writers' Guild of America walked out for five months in a dispute that delayed the start of the country's autumn season.