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UPDATE: I'm stunned by the bizarre admission below of AFTRA's chair of the steering committee Matt Kimbrough. Especially after sources tell me that AFTRA leaders gave SAG assurances they would not repudiate the resolution or the entire news release yesterday after reviewing drafts and approving the final version put out to the media. And I'm told the AFTRA leaders themselves chose to have their logo removed from the release.
Look, people haveen saying that the so-called WandW is the constitutional process by which SAG and AFTRA get together in a formal committee setting and hear from members across the country regarding issues and proposals for consideration in the negotiating package. This was an action of the Hollywood Joint SAG/AFTRA Wages and Working Conditions Committee which is co-chaired by an AFTRA chair and a SAG Chair and is comprised of SAG and AFTRA members. The committee is not national but the vast majority actors -- nearly 2/3 of all actors in the country -- live in the Hollywood/SoCal area. This includes AFTRA members and more than 70,000 SAG members. These are working actors. In addition, the majority of television and film work comes out of this area as well so the committee is reflective of working actors who know these contract issues very well.
I'm told that Hollywood Joint SAG and AFTRA WandW members worked hard for weeks preparing an extraordinarily informed and inclusive package of suggestions and proposals. There was reportedly a feeling of elation and even solidarity among them after reaching the joint SAG-AFTRA resolution. From what I've heard, all the committee members passed the resolution with an instruction to release it publicly and directed staff of the unions to distribute it. So for any of them now, much less this AFTRA leader, to now renounce the resolution seems not just suspicious but also pernicious.
STATEMENT FROM MATT KIMBROUGH, CHAIR OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TELEVISION AND RADIO ARTISTS STEERING COMMITTEE:
“The statement issued yesterday by the Screen Actors Guild was erroneous and unfortunately does not accurately represent the current state of affairs between SAG and AFTRA. SAG and AFTRA are not at this point ‘jointly’ participating in the Wages and Working Conditions process for the upcoming Prime Time negotiations. We are merely co-hosting these meetings. Moreover, Friday's session was an unassigned assemblage of members and had no authority to represent AFTRA's elected leadership or the opinion of the majority of its actor members.
In my efforts to complete the W&W process, rather than allowing a lengthy discussion on Friday to disrupt the real business of the meeting, I allowed misleading language that misrepresents AFTRA and its members to remain in the resolution. I regret that I did not object to this language at the time. The resolution, now released, is being used as a weapon in an internal political battle between factions within SAG. AFTRA has no interest in being caught up in SAG's internal battles and I am troubled by the inaccurate rhetoric that distorts the state of our current relationship with each other. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of AFTRA leadership believes that we have a responsibility to proceed with negotiations as soon as possible. I share that belief. I apologize to my leadership if Friday’s resolution has caused anyone to question this position.”
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*blink*
No, really.
*blink*
Matt okayed the language but is blaming SAG for releasing the resolution with the language he approved?
I think if you all really apply yourselves, you could botch this negotiation more.
Huh. So the Resolution on Negotiations wasn’t “Joint.”
Matt Kimbrough sure fooled ME. Watching him over five days, I took him to be confident, but unassuming; easygoing; diplomatic, without being devious; all in all, a very likeable fellow.
So it’s hard to believe that he (and the AFTRA staff sitting beside him) would go along with a resolution he found so troubling. And he did so . . . . just to keep the proceedings moving along? And timeliness was more important than the content of this resolution?
He wasn’t planning, all along, to drop this bomb (of clarification), just as we all got our hopes up that
we could face the Eight Iron Ganefs with a united front. Was he?
Did his AFTRA superiors dress him down after publication of the resolution? Was he ordered to issue this retraction?
More importantly, can we all get past this gaffe and work toward peace between our unions? I know, from sitting in on the last S.A.G. Board meeting, that the Hollywood branch is willing to make what sound to me like serious concessions, in order to resolve outstanding differences.
Who could be benefitting from fanning the flames? Not the memberships of either organization. The differences are real, but not irreconcileable. And at least some of those differences could be resolved AFTER the conclusion of successful negotiations, no?
Dave Clennon
This is a rotten reward for the great work Matt did as co-chair of the Hollywood Joint Wages and Working Conditions Committee. Doing this to Matt reveals AFTRA’s leaders as inexperienced and manipulative, with an agenda that is not in the best interests of AFTRA members.
President Reardon should be ashamed of herself for allowing this to even be forced on Matt. She chose him to be the chair of this committee. Her role should be in standing up for him and his right to vote how he sees fit, not trying to rewrite history by forcing Matt to grovel and apologize.
At the first sign of cooperation and unity among SAG and AFTRA members, AFTRA’s leaders go crazy and force Matt to publicly humiliate himself.
And what’s with the accusation that SAG is refusing to work together when SAG and AFTRA’s leaders have been in every day of W&W for the last month. Doing what? Uhhhh, yeah, working together.
Why these Stalinist tactics of saying something is so, when everyone knows it isn’t? Here’s why.
AFTRA is holding a gun to SAG’s head and telling the leadership either you do what we want or we will go to producers and offer lower wages for actors in order to sign the production and steal SAG jurisdiction. Does it sound farfetched? Well, AFTRA’s been doing just that for several years. Ask any actor working any number of basic cable contracts under AFTRA — they have lower minimum pay, no residuals and free Internet. AFTRA is hurting actors with very bad deals in basic cable and they won’t stop doing it.
What does SAG want from AFTRA? Simply their agreement that they will NOT undercut the wages and working conditions of actors in order to sign contracts at lower rates. This is a pledge SAG leader Alan Rosenberg has already made — many times. AFTRA’s Reardon refuses to make that pledge as does Kim Hedgepeth, their director.
But this press statement seems to be a bit much even for them.
Sorry ladies, you can’t wave your witch wands and erase a duly constituted joint committee meeting, a duly voted joint resolution and the votes of a room full of people. It’s obvious, AFTRA and SAG members want to cooperate. AFTRA leaders don’t.
This release really says nothing about Matt, but it speaks volumes about Roberta Reardon and Kim Roberts Hedgepeth.
I hope AFTRA members are listening.
Matt Kimbrough, shame on you. The joint SAG/Aftra members of the W&W process who have been participating in the Wages and Working Conditions meetings all month long voted unanimously on this resolution, and I saw no-one in the room have any problem with this, including you!
You stated: “Moreover, Friday’s session was an unassigned assemblage of members and had no authority to represent AFTRA’s elected leadership or the opinion of the majority of its actor members.”
Are you saying that every member of this joint committee wasted their time, and sat there with no authority? We made sure that only people who are on the W&W committee voted, and that they had participated in the month-long meetings. Are you saying that their hard work and their voices do not count? Board members from both SAG and Aftra were in the room, along with rank & file members, and the body voted unanimously for the resolution.
We moved swiftly on the vote, and no one had any objections, including you. Obviously someone gave you marching orders after the vote, (100% contrary to the room), and you cannot think for yourself.
This vote was nothing more than a vote to reaffirm the process, and that we are all working together with integrity.
Where is your integrity?
It has been stated over and over again, that there is a process in place, and only when that process is completed, can negotiations formally begin. Anyone who has a clue knows this. Grandstanding by certain factions within both organizations are doing more harm than good.
You, my friend, know this as much as anyone.
Now, Aftra has all the information from the W&W’s, is refusing to acknowledge that we are still in Phase 1 by parsing words like “joint” and “co-hosting”.
Everyone knows that meetings with CEOs are in process and have been for weeks.
Everyone in the room was on the same page, and now you have polarized us once again. Aftra is steering actors down a very sad path; already actors working on Basic-Cable shows get no residuals, thus no Health & Retirement, and so what I glean from your statement is that Aftra is going to go in early, before the process is completed, and attempt to negotiate with the AMPTP without SAG, and further destroy an actors’ ability to make a living in this business.
Aftra has 3 shows on PrimeTime, and does no film. How dare Aftra decide to invade SAG jurisdiction. As a member of the Aftra National Board, I reject this end-run around a process that has been in play for decades.
It is obvious that Aftra is run by paid staff, whose only interest is claiming jurisdiction to the detriment of actors:
Aftra has invaded traditional SAG jurisdiction in the recent years, making individual deals in Basic-Cable, offering cut-rate deals for actors that give away 10-15+ 24-hour days of free reruns, which means actors get no residuals, thus no Health & Retirement. Think about it: Actors get no residuals for a year. Not only are these SAG members working under an inferior Aftra contract, their pension accrual rate is less; Aftra is 1.7% and SAG is 3.5%.
Aftra made a deal for 6 years with Nickeodeon giving away free internet streaming.
In 2005, during co-SAG/Aftra Interactive (video games) negotiations, SAG was in the process of negotiating residuals; Aftra folded and settled for a deal with no residuals in the fastest growing business in our industry, “revenue was up 43% in 2007 to $18 Billion dollars” Variety 1/17/08. No residuals for actors.
Nikki Finke’s first comment on the Resolution is that the it would be “bad news for the AMPTP”. Thank you Matt, for destroying the solidarity of the W&W process, and for turning your back on actors.
If Mr. Kimbrough feels the need to apologize, it should be to the AFTRA members who had their vote nullified by the Hired Help.
“In my efforts to complete the W&W process, rather than allowing a lengthy discussion on Friday to disrupt the real business of the meeting, I allowed misleading language that misrepresents AFTRA and its members to remain in the resolution. I regret that I did not object to this language at the time.”
That’s an impressive way to take responsibility for one’s own actions. Very, very impressive. “I am troubled by the inaccurate rhetoric that distorts the state of our current relationship with each other” but not troubled enough to do anything at the time, and then further fanning the flames is always helpful.
Hey, “Stand Together”
If you want to have any credibility, cut the misogynistic editorializing and epithet.
You sound like a crazed whiny baby who can’t stand that women in power aren’t giving in to baby’s demands.
Mommy issues, much?
Typical AFTRA. It’s the same thing year after year… they’re all about solidarity until it’s time to sign a joint deal, then they run in the opposite direction – undercut SAG, and ruin middle-class actors’ ability to make a living in this business. What a bunch of amateurs. I wish they would stick to representing news and sportscasters and let professional performers of scripted entertainment sign contracts through SAG. AFTRA’s leadership doesn’t care about WORKING professionals or what we want/need in these contracts. They only care about themselves.
Thanks AFTRA,
Thanks for doing the wrong thing again for us, in our name. As a union member, I’d like to say it’s really appreciated. Maybe in the next year or so, you could figure out a way to eliminate pension and health coverage.
Oh, and maybe you could also get that show to pay me the 20 thousand they own me. It’s only been a year and a half since I did the job.
My condolences to anyone and everyone that clearly fought very hard in these joint meetings to present a unified front, only to have the brilliant results dimmed by the dimwitted.
Who benefits? Why, the AMPTP of course. While your superior officers bicker over semantics the AMPTP’s snipers are given plenty of time to put a bead on their heads. I don’t need to tell you what happens next.
“With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
Only the morons of today will be to blame when the AMPTP is still screwing this industry over a century from now. Every golden opportunity to strike a hard long-term blow against The Man that’s been presented has been thrown away in favor of less short-term conflict. Time will tell: Your unwillingness to fight now will ensure that someone else will have to fight your fight later, and your lack of resolve only encourages the AMPTP to remain belligerent until they get what they want in all situations.
Can somebody explain me to the jurisdictional differences/similarities between SAG and AFTRA? and how this dynamic was created?
In my opinion, Kimbrough’s one of the few honest brokers between the memberships of the two unions…and now he’s been hung out to dry.
The air is so poisonous at this point, I think it’s time to let SAG present their strike authorization to the membership and see if they can get it passed.
If they can (which I think is unlikely), let’s see what kind of deal they get.
As a working actor in both unions, the care, feeding, education and health care of my children depend on two movie/TV salaries. My wife and I have been through months of strike. We can probably handle a few more.
After that, all bets are off.
As a working actor earning under both SAG and AFTRA contracts and with friends on both Boards, I’ve listened closely these past weeks. Having participated in the just-concluded W&W I am impressed with Mr. Kimbrough’s intelligence and even-tempered manner and his on-target contributions to the process of gathering membership input. And I am grateful to the AFTRA staff members and SAG staff members who gave of their time and expertise to the process.
The drafter of the so-called “joint” SAG/AFTRA motion referenced above knew damned well these W&W sessions were not “joint” meetings, but co-hosted meetings. (This same drafter authored the Summer 2007 motions to disable Phase-One-to-Merger with AFTRA.) So to NOW be screaming bloody murder at AFTRA and at Mr. Kimbrough – an AFTRA-appointed volunteer who has given of his time for all of us at the W&W sessions – is the height of disingenuousness…perhaps more appropriate to say, horseshit.
To attempt once again to ram this kind of tactical, divisive, mulled-over crap down working members’ throats is not unexpected, considering the source.
To go from a year of shrill, ugly AFTRA-bashing to suddenly feigning shock and horror at a misstep by an AFTRA-appointed W&W moderator, is far from the much-needed spirit of solidarity we’ll need to survive these looming negotiations.
Membership First blog-scribes, dismount from your too-high horses, holster your pens, and thank Mr. Kimbrough for his hard work on your behalf.
You owe the man and all of us who enjoy membership in both SAG and AFTRA an apology for perpetrating this charade upon the membership.
I sure do wish the two unions would have merged. Then none of this would be happening. All these problems were predicted.
But I wish we had an agency agreement too.
To “Intrigued”,
Unless you are a shill, but for the benefit of all who are reading this: The jurusdictional battle has been with digital; all of a sudden Aftra has claimed that “digital changes everything”…NOT. Aftra has had jurisdiction over live broadcast, SAG over filmed content. Aftra has claimed that the way of capturing performance is different now that another way of capturing changes the rules. That is not true.
Look at the rule books of both SAG and Aftra. It is clearly spelled out. Do some homework.
To “Another Working Actor” (and geez, I wish everyone had the balls to identify themselves):
To go to what you perceive is an easy answer: Merge!!!
I say to you–have you heard of the Mercer Report, that stated that by merging our two unions, that it would be a detriment to the SAG members? Hello?
Most actors are dual card holders. We should all be in one union that fights for the best wages and working conditions possible. Why should SAG merge with Aftra? Why metasticize that cancer? Aftra has consistently shown themselves as an organization that is ready to cave at the least sign of trouble.
Aftra is living off of SAG in the Branches, (they have never had any offices open on their own; right now they are sucking $2 million of SAG dues, living off of SAG), and they are giving away residuals on Nickleodeon and Basic-Cable in order to claim jurisdiction.
I am flabergashted at members who seem to be entrenched with the idea that Aftra has any integrity when it comes to actors.
Aftra contains many people in this industry who are not actors; broadcasters, disk jockeys, weatherpeople, game show hosts, etc…. (Who vote on the upcoming TV/Theatrical contract, by the way). What do they have to do with acting? Doesn’t it seem to you that actors should all be in one Union? There are 40 thousand actors who are dual csrd holders; shouldn’t we all be in one Union? Solidarity, yes?
The ugly truth is that Aftra would be nothing without Actors….that is where they make their money. So they are selling out actors in order to get jurisdiction, in order fill their coffers.
Broadcasters, who are also members of Aftra, are not Unionized. CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ect…are not union, yet the broadcasters are members of Aftra, and they are not held to the standard of Union organization. Hello Larry King, as one example.
Aftra cannot organize “live”, but they dare to try to organize scripted programming, which has been SAG jurisdiction? It is disengenuous to say the least.
Aftra has been sucking hind tit long enough. The Matt Kimbrough retraction of solidarity is another example that Aftra is not run by its members, but is run by hired staff. Unfortunate, but true.
Remember that board members are not paid. We work from a desire to represent our membership. Paid staff get their monthly salary no matter what happens. And when paid staff influences any board member, I have to question: Who is in charge?
/facepalm
If SAG and AFTRA don’t stop trying to destroy each other, AMPTP will destroy them both, and all of us with them. I can just see Nick Counter and his crew gleefully rubbing his hands the more nonsense like this goes on. How the fuck did we get whiny little child-men and child-women running the unions instead of ADULTS!!
Ms. Fisher –
The Mercer Report, which people, including SAG health plan trustees, have disputed, only considered the merging of the health plans. SAG is more than its health plan.
When merger was being considered back in ‘99, we were told that failure to merge would lead to the two unions, in effect, competing to offer increasingly bad contracts to the producers. We’re seeing that happen now.
We should have merged back in ‘99.
frances,
i guess i didnt make my question clear. I am curious to find out how it came about that two unions represent the same people and are directly competing for the same work.
can u or anybody else enlighten me on this? i am not certain i have ever heard of two unions in direct compettion with eachother like this.
Intrigued,
I started out in this business as a stand-in for the actors, (standing in for my friend who was an actor) this was in the early 1980’s. I’m not sure if the “rules” are the same now, but back then, AFTRA had jurisdiction over “taped” shows. On TV it was usually 3 camera, stage taped shows,ie: a show such as” 3’s company”, or “What’s Happening”. I think soaps and news shows are also taped. SAG had jurisdiction over “film”, shows such as Dallas, Knot’s Landing, etc., SAG had jurisdiction over movies, since the bulk of them were done on film. It seems back then these jurisdictions were pretty clear.
From what I’ve been reading I don’t know how true this is anymore, I was only doing this work for a couple of years. What’s interesting is now digital is now being used, the TV show “Joan Of Arcadia” was shot in digital, I know the actors were SAG, but I don’t know if this is SAGs
“jurisdiction” exclusively.
I sure someone out there has a better understanding of all this, but I’m stunned by the contrast between the 2 unions. Sounds as though AFTRA is to SAG, what Tom Short (iatse) is to the Teamsters.
Wow a guy asks a simple question of jurisdiction and is called a shill immediately by FF. Usually its a dissenting opinion that draws the dreaded shill tag. Nice to see it being thrown out early look forward to the onslaught of shill calling in the weeks/months to come.
btl teamster,
thanks for the info
btl teamster,
Heck, as an IA member I gotta say that analogy appears to apply to some of our locals as well even though Short is supposed to represent our interests.
NY and way below the line