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UPDATES Angry NY Division Calls For Emergency SAG National Board Meeting
The Screen Actors Guild today released the following statement on behalf of SAG national president Alan Rosenberg in response to the NY Division’s demands:
“I am shocked and troubled that some members of our New York Board have issued a statement to the press regarding our October 2008 national board directive to send a strike authorization referendum to SAG members. Oddly, a portion of the group that now holds the majority of votes on our national board, and who voted as part of the 97% majority to send this referendum to members, has now reconsidered.
The global economy was failing before the new board voted in October to send this referendum. We are keenly aware of and sensitive to the fact that the economy has further declined since then. When economic times are tough, members rely on their union even more to protect them from management’s tactics. I believe we must be even more vigilant during these challenging times. The solution to the industry’s economic hardship must not be rollbacks that cripple our member’s ability to earn a living.
The national board must take these facts into consideration when deciding whether to exercise the authority we are seeking from the membership to call a strike. Only the newly constituted board that passed the strike authorization motion in October has the authority to call a strike once 75% of the members who vote approve the strike authorization.
The New York board never asked me to call a board meeting, and they did not take the opportunity to do so during our National Executive Committee meeting three days ago. In fact, I have never been notified of their “demands,” as their statement was sent directly to the press, not the Screen Actors Guild. This action encourages and emboldens the AMPTP and seriously harms SAG members throughout the country. Apparently, some of the NY board members’ responsibilities and obligations to SAG members come behind their own political agenda.
I will in fact call an emergency national board meeting, but for the purpose of discussing the ramifications of this extraordinarily destructive and subversive action of the New York Board. The board will be notified of the date and time shortly.”
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Jesus H. Christ… cut these NY bozos loose. Let’s start up a SAG West and negotiate our own contracts.
Wow, Alan finally realizes he’s not God? That he MIGHT JUST HAVE TO SETTLE?
Gosh darn it, those spunky Noo Yawkers.
Congratulations to *some* of the NY SAG board, they have managed to undermine their guild in the most treacherous and backstabbing way.
J. Nicholas Counter III must be delighted there are such idiots cutting SAG off at the knees.
SAG West Please…
One of the major problems facing SAG is that there is already ANOTHER actors union that is completely undermining the power of the other. Do you really think fragmenting your union further is going to help?
Start treating your business as a business and you’ll start showing the big boys you mean to stick around. Currently, there’s two stores open, and when one closes, the studios are just going to go to the AFTRA and buy their contracts wholesale.
It’s funny how this issue is overlooked, and how the studios are loving that you’re overlooking it.
I love how he agrees to meet and then tries to tell them he will only talk about the “ramifications of this extraordinarily destructive and subversive action” – he is in for a BIG suprise NY style!
Yes, you go ahead and splinter your leverage further than you already have. Excellent strategy.
Seeing as NY is ground zero for this massive Central Banking De-leveraging Apocalypse that has brought this country to its knees, I’d say that ANY New York member of Alan and Doug’s remaining club is a pretty f’ing good barometer for what SAG’s future is if you call an authorization vote.
SAG should be lead by a working actor and a good lawyer who understand that like it fully or not, the new contract is still a RAISE while most people are taking LESS now than a year before. this guy is a clown and since my business, which is already feeling the economy, is dependent on actors doing their jobs I will be first to throw fruit at any clown that dare go out with picket signs over this nonsense. the threat of a strike is doing enough damage to the rest of us already (paramount fired more today) and SAG members should run him out of town. it’s a 2 year deal anyway and it would be a quarter over by now anyway if they stopped this foolishness. you think the studios are making more than ever now? not a chance. it’s survival of the smartest people… dress accordingly.
Hey SAG West,
Have you, um, read a newspaper? We’re in the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression.
But guess what was sort of, well, GREAT about the Great Depression? Show business kicked ass, box office went crazy. When people get depressed because they’re broke, they go to the movies and watch TV. So, we should be ramping up production like crazy. Why aren’t we?
SAG. For like, almost a nine months now, since the day the Writer’s Strike ended.
And, to be fair, Nick Counter, who would like to break SAG on his way out the AMPTP door. Deballed by Peter Chernin in the WGA strike, he’d love to see SAG go out so that EVERY pilot this year, and every motion picture that’s greenlit and ready to go can become an AMPTP production.
I’m sorry that Alan has fallen for it. Once again Nick Counter is Lucy, holding the football, daring SAG to kick it.
New York is right. You are wrong. I walked around in the driveways, I know when there’s a time to strike, and a time not to. This is the time not to. Get your shit together, merge with AFTRA, have one frigging actor’s union and come back strong. The deal isn’t horrible, it just isn’t ideal. Actors will get a better deal when they stop pretending that there are two different groups of actors. Most working members belong to both unions, now more than ever because of how many network shows have switched to AFTRA.
Welcome to America in the recession. If the deal good enough for every other union in town it will have to do for now.
Let’s make money by getting back to full production levels, shall we?
thank you NY! As a wga member, I support you!!!
NY is in the middle of this economic meltdown more that l.a. They get it.
Spunky Noo Yawkers? NY Bozos? What? No calls of “shills”?
I agree with SAG West Please. But I’ll go one further. I think the NY Bozos should merge with AFTRA since they both are weak spined go along to get along types.
This is digusting, between AFTRA and SAG East the AMPTP members are laughing all the way to the bank with OUR money.
I have never seen so many in such a hurry to give away oour future. Yeah, the economy is bad…but it will be worse for all actors if we just hand our souls to the greedy companies.
What “crippled SAG member’s ability to earn a living” was SAG TAKING ON TOO MANY MEMBERS!!!
90% of SAG’s membership probably makes less then 5k a year.
No matter what terms they come to with the AMPTP, these members STILL WON’T BE MAKING A LIVING!!!
Stop make those of us that do earn a living, in the industry, suffer because of the mismanagement of your guild!
SAG WEST PLEASE
I hear you. Let the RBD and NY try to run things without the money that
comes from Hollywood. This tail waggin’ the dog bullshit has got to stop.
Politics and personalities aside, if these dickless chumps would stand up
ONCE, just once, we would have the contract we all want.
Some of these people would slit their own throats just to see
Rosenberg and Allen fail. They are duplicitous and reprehensible.
Here we go again…
Rosenberg playing nice with all his dissenters.
Do you think it might have been a good idea to gauge people’s feeling about this strike BEFORE you made a decision to send out a strike authorization? But i’m sure that Rosenberg and all his little minnions will find a new reason to attack fellow unionized actors here. It’s impossible for them to admit that Rosenberg is to blame here by jumping the gun and trying to force his idiotic opinions on everyone else.
Is it possible that not everyone is as enthusiastic about this strike as say a handful of people in Hollywood who refuse to listen to anyone else?
But I suppose the only “real” members of SAG are those who drink Rosenberg’s Kool-Aid and then ask for seconds.
Everyone to Rosenberg: SAG isn’t your own personal plaything. You represent US. We are not here to provide cover FOR YOU!
To: SAG West please…
Oh ya, that’s exactly what we need right now. Even MORE fragmentation because you didn’t get your way. Waaa Waaa Waaa! Tantrum much, little boy?
I swear to God, we have the dumbest people alive running this thing.
A UNION HAS TO STAY TOGETHER. The LARGER THE UNION, the more powerful we are. But that means you have to stop DICTATING to everyone else and then crying everytime (and threatening further divisions) people come out against your dictates.
Doing whatever you want, at the expense of your members feelings and self-interest, will in NO WAY help you accomplish the goal of keeping this Union together. Thus, you will automatically enter any negotiation weakened by your own small-mindedness and divisions. Now you talk about dividing it even further.
Is any of this getting through to you people? THIS ISN’T A ZERO-SUM GAME HERE! There are people here who have a lot to lose. You are playing with the livelihood of good people.
I can’t imagine why no one wants to jump off a cliff with you people.
NY ACTORS!!! PLEASE stand up and tell everyone that this handful of NY Board members DO NOT represent the NY Actors’ feelings about these contracts.
The NY Actors I’ve talked to are characteristically “New Yorkers” about the SAG negotiations and want to fight with everything they’ve got to keep SAG’s contract provisions in place. This new contract proposal would dismantle almost the entire thing!!!
If that’s not worth striking over or, at the very least, giving the negotiating committee some leverage for Christsake, I don’t know what you people are paying DUES for.
Stand up for yourselves for crying out loud! Have some pride in your Union! There are a lot of people in the last 75 years of SAG who did it for you (including the people who started the union-DURING THE DEPRESSION). Now it’s your turn!
What SAG West Please said.
Separate into SAG West and SAG East. Enough already.
Alan Rosenberg: self-victimized by his own “extraordinarily destructive and subversive” rhetoric (and bad “acting”).
This madness has got to stop. Rosenberg must stop trying to convince a huge group of angry, unemployed actors to shut down the business when the biz is already screwed by the economy. Hey, Alan – jackass – when you say you want to strike the industry, all you’re doing is irritating the corporate heads who are already pissed at their rinky dink studios. You want to strike Universal? GE doesn’t care. Wanna strike Fox? You think Murdoch really cares, either? Stop the madness. Look at what the other guilds did. The ones who are not tilting at windmills. Settle it and get on with your life, buddy.
Rosenberg and co. have screwed up as much as Zucker and Silverman.
Yeah, that’s the answer cut these bozos loose. In an atmospehere where we are now recognizing the damage that unions out of control have done to this country (see Steel workers, and a 1990s UAW, even they are recognizing now their contribution in outpricing themselves in competition with Toyota and Nissan), the fact that some of you look at yourselves as above the economic crisis is just beyond me. (and I am not saying unions alone are to blame, it has been on both sides, however those unions outpriced themselves with regard to the competition).
Here is a fact, the money that you all want from the digital platform won’t be even though of being tapped until IPTV is prevelant in 35-45% of American TVs. This is a 7-10 year process. That is two contracts from now.
Take the WGA/DGA deal, lay the groundwork for future negotiations, and modify appropriately when a) the economy is better; b) The technology is in more households; c) when SAG/WGA/AFTRA can get their houses in order and form a united front.
A strike, in my opinion, will mean the end of SAG as you know it. TV will go all AFTRA, the stars that drive the feature business will cross the lines, and Rosenberg will be deemed impotent.
Here’s one last comment from the sidelines. Next time you go outside to get union counsel try not to pick the guy who represented the weakest union in professional sports, the NFLPA. You want brains and aggressiveness tap Major League Baseball and Don Fehr’s people.
This strike rhetoric was born out of a class of non-workers with nothing additional to lose, under the leadership of a man in search of a moment for himself to shine. With nothing to be gained and everything to be lost, this confederacy of dunces has marched on to the tune of their own demise. Maybe now, with half of their own leadership sharply divided (and most every A-list actor privately denouncing their irresponsible actions), this madness will finally end.
Does Rosenberg really think membership and the NY Board will stand idly by and not express their opinions on the folly of a strike while this asshole drives us all over a cliff. Last time I checked there was no such thing as SAG WEST…there is SAG…and members were entitled to say what they wished. Once this strike authorization is defeated and SAG has to crawl back to the table…perhaps then membership will throw Rosenberg and Allen back to the sharks…where they came from…its tough out there….VOTE NO!
Cut the NY chapter loose? They’re the brains AND muscle of the operation. It’s nice to see someone finally calling Rosenberg out. Then again it’s like attacking HOWDY DOODY to get his puppeteer to do something.
Obviously, someone got to them…