Deadline reports that SAG and AFTRA have raised concerns that the non-union, New Zealand-shot movie will not adequately provided its actors with proper working conditions, minimum guarantee of wages and sufficient residuals, an important sticking point when the previous JRR Tolkien / Peter Jackson joint grossed three billion dollars worldwide.
Sending out a member alert, SAG and AFTRA advising its members to not accept work from The Hobbit and to contact their union rep if offered a job. We'll see how this develops and if a bunch of Orc scabs end up breaking the picket lines.
UPDATE: Peter Jackson has responded to the member alert from SAG and AFTRA in a very carefully plotted, point-by-point rebuttal. The long and the short of it is that Jackson says he has always honored union contracts and union rules and that his casting of non-union actors comes from a desire to cast Kiwi actors, many of whom do not have a SAG card. Jackson also paints the whole brouhaha as a plot by Australian unions, acting through a tiny, ineffectual New Zealand union, to gain a greater control of the many films being shot in NZ; the money shot being that Jackson has threatened to shoot the film in Eastern Europe if the matter isn't resolved. His whole letter, very polite, matter-of-fact, and pretty convincing to my eyes, is worth a read.
SAG & AFTRA Nix Non-Union 'The Hobbit': Kiwi & Oz Actors Confront Peter Jackson [Deadline]