Comments (13)

• So AFTRA is up to it’s old tricks. Undercutting SAG. I trust our SAG leaders BECAUSE they ask for our input as members. They’re LISTENING to the needs of the membership. And if they need time to make a good presentation, they need time. My life has been made better by this union. I can’t say the same about AFTRA.

  Peggy Lane O’Rourke

  Comment by Peggy Lane O'Rourke — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 5:04pm PST  Reply to this post

• Dear AFTRA,

  Could you please act as if you are not complete amateurs? That would be great.

  Another ashamed AFTRA member,
  David Anthony

  Comment by David Anthony — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 6:05pm PST  Reply to this post

• It’s no joke. Rosenberg and Allen can take it or leave it. It’s time for the people who actually work in the business to get down to business.

  Thank goodness there’s at least one performers union that gets it.

  We’re not here to go on strike. We’re here to make the best deal we can and go to work.

  Comment by Tobvious — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 6:26pm PST  Reply to this post

• Thank you Nikki for yet another of your editorials. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
  And here’s mine; if all these people are saying the same thing, perhaps the SAG brass should listen. Call me crazy, but on the heals of the debilitating writers strike, faced with an economy that is, for all intents and purposes, in a recession, sabre rattling, delay tactics, and thinnly veiled threats may not be the wisest bargaining position.

  Comment by Chad Lowe — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 7:31pm PST  Reply to this post

• Chad Lowe:

  If you don’t appreciate Nikki’s position, don’t visit the site. You come on your own accord.

  Nikki, as usual, happens to be right on, cutting through the baloney.

  Comment by Matt — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 9:07pm PST  Reply to this post

• Why oh why is AFTRA in such a rush???

  Seriously, if AFTRA and SAG present a united front and work together, performers are in the driver’s seat going into negotiations.

  The studios are in a de facto film strike already. A June 30 walkout lasting more than a couple of weeks will do enormous damage to the Fall television season, and the networks know it.

  The AMPTP isn’t going to tip their hand, but they’re more amenable to a good deal for the actors than they’re letting on, so long as the actors are unified.

  Why Roberta Reardon would make these moves, at this time, to undercut the performers’ position is well beyond me. Maybe because she’s in New York and has done much of her work in soap operas, which do not carry the DVD, residual, and New Media value of scripted series, she has no idea what the store’s worth, so she has no problem with giving it away.

  Comment by mheister — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 9:16pm PST  Reply to this post

• My experience of Doug Allen and Alan Rosenberg & Company is that they have not listened for one moment to the demands and preferences of the vast majority of the SAG membership over the past year, but have merely continued to grind ahead with their own preconceived ideas to impact others’ lives in ways that reflect the flawed notions of their own personal destinies.

  Comment by Tom Ligon — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 9:50pm PST  Reply to this post

• Aftra has no business invading SAG jurisdiction; they have three shows on PrimeTime. Aftra does no film.

  This is grandstanding of the highest order, because Aftra is preparing to continue undercutting actor’s contracts if they violate Phase 1 and go in to negotiate more bad deals, just as they have been in basic-cable. The pretense of caring about actors is disingenuously transparent: just talk to any actor working Aftra basic-cable – no residuals. Or actors working the Interactive contract – no residuals. Does any actor want these crap deals in the TV/Theatrical contract?

  Instead of haranguing SAG to go in early, how come actors are not telling Kim and Roberta to lay off?

  There is a process in place, Chad. SAG leadership is not “delaying”. If more actors stopped sitting on the sidelines and called the Guild to understand the ramifications of Aftra’s machiavellian moves, instead of listening to fear-based rhetoric, we would all be a lot better off.

  How about a membership meeting?

  Comment by Frances Fisher — Tuesday March 4, 2008 @ 10:57pm PST  Reply to this post

• Tobvious & Lowe (aka Crazy),

  Clearly you were both nestled snug in your beds over this last rainy winter and NOT out walking the WGA picket lines.

  Comment by Casey Keller — Wednesday March 5, 2008 @ 12:16am PST  Reply to this post

• Meanwhile, SAG is offering no-strike pacts to Indie productions who want to start now and wind up their shooting after June 30.

  Comment by mheister — Wednesday March 5, 2008 @ 1:28am PST  Reply to this post

• I am a dual cardholder and I was involved in the Wages and Working Conditions process for the whole month of February and was present as each group (dancers, singers, stunt people, background, minority, disabled, senior and major-role performers — and most importantly to me — working class actors) came into the room and presented what were their most pressing issues as we prepare to negotiate with the employers. It was amazingly educational, and made me very proud to be part of these unions… until, literally, the last hour of the last day, when AFTRA leadership or staff or someone decided to play politics with what had, up until then, been a process devoted solely to concerns of the membership.

  I wholeheartedly believe that no one wants a strike — not Doug Allen, not Allen Rosenberg, not any member I’ve spoken with — no one.

  However, when a union goes into negotiations, without the threat of a strike, what do they have? Absolutely nothing. They go into that negotiating room with their hat in their hand, hoping that the employers will give them some crumbs. How many employers give away ANYTHING they don’t have to?

  I have avoided most of the politics within and between my unions. But this move by AFTRA serves only to weaken any chance we have for getting a decent contract — and I firmly believe that this is the most important contract we have negotiated in my almost 25 years in these unions.

  The WGA trusted its leadership and hung tough. We need to do the same. The employers are laughing at us as they watch us do their work for them. And AFTRA should be collecting a paycheck from the AMPTP.

  Comment by Keith MacKechnie — Wednesday March 5, 2008 @ 9:39am PST  Reply to this post

• I don’t think SAG would HAVE to go on strike. Not for too long anyway. Not the way this town LOVES their movies. They’ll destroy an entire t.v. season, but don’t touch their precious Oscars. I guess the belief there is that reality is so prevalent that ANYONE can be on t.v.. But that theory doesn’t apply to film. Anyone remember Jackass:The Movie?
  So while no one in the AMPTP really cares about the rank and file, our best “weapons” ARE the multi-million dollar stars. Shut down film production? Way too much money for the AMPTP to lose. SAG has power in this. WTF AFTRA? Why would you jeopardize this? Why are you hell-bent on destroying hard earned contracts for actors in television? First cable, and now network. Rules of Engagement is an AFTRA show. It airs on CBS. It’s not some cable show. It is a huge victory for someone to book a job, and then to find out it’s AFTRA is almost always a disappointment. Different pension, different, way more expensive health care. For some actors, it’s like just working for a check without benefits. You should be ashamed of that!

  And you’re not stopping run away production here. A major network sitcom like Rules of Engagement was NOT going to Canada, okay!

  Good point about Reardon coming from soaps. Makes a lot of sense. She clearly does NOT get it.

  And as for Rosenberg not listening, I recently attended a small meeting of working actors at a private home and Rosenberg, Doug Allen and Anne Marie Johnson not only took the time to attend, but to listen to questions from all of us. A group of working actors. I myself stood up and spoke directly to him about my feelings on qualified voting. I have been a member of SAG for 3/4 of my life and I have never had the opportunity to speak directly to the president of my guild. I am blown away that I got to do that and that he personally took the time to listen and to reply. I fully believe that he IS listening to all members and wants to do what is in the best interest for this union. He has my vote of confidence in where ever he decides to take our union.

  Peggy Lane O’Rourke

  Comment by Peggy Lane O'Rourke — Wednesday March 5, 2008 @ 1:34pm PST  Reply to this post

• When a group of actors is told that they, their services, and opinions are worth less than another group of actors, they will eventually listen, and having heard, will rightly respond by asking for less. The end result is that the salaries of all actors will drop.

  Film actors in the sixties didn’t much care about network TV contracts, as they didn’t expect to be working under them. Network TV actors in the eighties paid little attention to Home Video and Cable provisions, because they didn’t expect them to apply. Those provisions now comprise the majority of our business. This is not a coincidence– it’s a fundamental rule that employers migrate to cheaper sources of labor when given that option.

  I advise anyone who expects to be acting ten years from now to pay special attention to the contract AFTRA gets on Basic Cable and New Media, as it’s the contract we’ll most likely be working under from here on out.

  Respectfully,
  Ron Livingston

  Comment by Ron Livingston — Friday March 7, 2008 @ 12:26pm PST  Reply to this post