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Screen Actors Guild Announces “Solidarity Campaign”
First 31 “Solidarity Signers” add names to list of members in support of a “yes” vote on the strike authorization referendum. Among the names are several prominent Academy Award nominees and recipients.Los Angeles, December 12, 2008 — Screen Actors Guild today announced the names of 30 recognizable members who, along with Guild national president Alan Rosenberg, signed SAG’s “Statement of Support.” The first signers include Mel Gibson, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Martin Sheen, Sandra Oh, Hal Holbrook, Dixie Carter, John Heard, Jerry O’Connell, Rob Morrow and 20 others. Guild secretary treasurer Connie Stevens and 1st national vice president Anne-Marie Johnson also signed on to the statement as did board members Elliott Gould, Frances Fisher, Valerie Harper, Robert Hays, Justine Bateman, Clancy Brown, Charles Shaughnessy, Scott Bakula, Diane Ladd and others.The SAG “Statement of Support” which reads:
“I support the Screen Actors Guild National Board of Directors request for members to vote YES to empower the National Board to decide whether to call a TV/Theatrical contract strike, and if so, determine its timeframe. We must arm our negotiating committee with the collective unity and strength of the Screen Actors Guild members.”Holbrook, Asner, Sheen, Ladd, Fisher, and Stevens have recorded video testimonials and topical messages that will debut on Screen Actors Guild’s website next week along with other celebrity testimonials.The Guild’s website now features video messages from Bateman, Shaughnessy and Brown prominently displayed in a homepage video viewer.
Initial signers include:
Ed Asner
Scott Bakula
Justine Bateman
Clancy Brown
Dixie Carter
George Coe
Anne DeSalvo
Frances Fisher
Mel Gibson
Brian Goodman
Elliot Gould
Ed Harris
Valerie Harper
John Heard
Robert Hays
Hal Holbrook
Holly Hunter
Anne-Marie Johnson
Diane Ladd
William Mapother
Kent McCord
Rob Morrow
Jerry O’Connell
Sandra Oh
Alan Rosenberg
Alan Ruck
Charles Shaughnessy
Martin Sheen
Connie Stevens
Renee Taylor
Alicia WittAll SAG members are invited to sign the “Statement of Support” by emailing their name and member number to the email address contract2008@sag.org. (SAG is in the final programming stages of an online sign up form which will be put on the home page of the website.) Video statements of support are playing now at http://www.sag.org.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Impressive. Why isn’t Sally Kirkland on this list?
The list should triple by COB monday. Where’s Penn and others?
All due respect to those on the list, the list is mostly notable for how many are NOT on it. None of the people on this list have a feature film out.
I didn’t imdb them, but I only notice one or two current series regulars.
Start listing stars that you think of as stars…Vince Vaughn George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Sean Penn go on and on and on and you don’t find those names on the list, and yet you saw many of those people on the picket line for the WGA strike.
Why? One simple reason, that strike made sense, this one wouldn’t.
People are trying to be true to their union by saying nothing, signing nothing, but I’ll be surprised if they vote for this strike authorization.
Finally! Some actors who can accomplish simple mathematical skills.
Great thanks to all of you “name actors” who aren’t afraid to publicly stand for something larger than yourselves.
Justine Bateman and Mel Gibson make strange bedfellows, but I agree somewhat with “WGA Writer.”
Regardless of the current prominence of those listed, there are also some notable names that you will likely hear preceded by “And the nominees are…” in the upcoming months, and none of those names are on that list.
Not the time to do this. Seeing those names didn’t impress me enough to change my mind.
Good God. If this is the best that Rosenberg and SAG can drum up, then this delusional and misguided effort is really off the rails. Pathetic. If I am AMPTP and I see this list, I first:
A) LAUGH
B) CALL ALL MY FRIENDS SO THEY TOO CAN LAUGH
C) CALL NICK COUNTER AND TELL HIM THE FIGHT IS WON
D) GO TO BED WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE
Another bright move, brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood strike-happy actors brigade!
It doesn’t matter if these actors are working or not. What really matters is that these stars know what is at stake and it is clear that this statement of solidarity is a new thing that was born in the last 24-36 hours. Yes you might have one or two people, currently working, that are on that list, but it will grow. Yes Hollywood needs another strike like a person being on the business end of a pulled tooth, but the AMPTP is asking for that strike by their refusal to negotiate and simply hope SAG takes that “final offer.”
These are the same old, same old Membership First people.
The problem for these people is that there exists actors outside this little clique that the SAG leadership never seems to listen to.
The SAG ‘Statement of Support’ which reads: “We must arm our negotiating committee with the collective unity and strength of the Screen Actors Guild members.”
I, for one (30-year) SAG member-in-good-standing, utterly reject the currant self-presumptuous “collective unity” template.
Guys… this ain’t rocket science.
Coerce a work-stoppage of employable members, you’ll destroy the Guild.
I’ll honorably walk — in “collective unity” with my family/dependents — away from SAG long before I’d ever consider walking away from the current profitable employment offered/negotiated by the AMPTP.
Yay! A whole 31. Only 89,969 more to go!
I’ll be the first to admit that I kinda hate on unions so please take this with a grain of salt…
As someone in the entertainment industry it offends me that we get paid what they do, while a teacher gets virtually nothing in comparison…so I always get a bad taste in my mouth when people act like residuals for contract players and massive salaries for staff should be a God given right.
That being said: I think its sad that people have to lobby for the right to gain leverage in negotiations.
Were all this lobbying happening to convince SAG members that to go on an immediate strike is a great idea, I would get all the lobbying. But all these people are asking for is the ability to actually to bring teeth to the bargaining table and what’s so wrong with that? You would think that other SAG members would get behind the tools that their union needs to negotiate the best possible deal for EVERYONE.
Also WGA writer,
I recognized 12 of those names.
And while many of them wouldn’t be considered marquee stars by many, personally I think it’s more impactful to have working actors say a strike authorization is worth it, because even while an actor like Clooney would be very sincere in his passion, the fact that he is financially set for life would make his appeal less meaningful to me than hearing the same message from someone I would regard (either rightly or wrongly) as a “Working Actor”
SAG, you couldn’t pick a worse time to strike. Save this fight for later.
I was forwarded this great letter written by Jason Alexander.
———
hello my friends and colleagues,
like many or most of you, i have been struggling over the state of our
union’s current negotiations and the upcoming ballot to authorize a
strike. it is a very complex issue at a very complex time. i have
received emails and missives from several people of integrity,
representing several aspects of the thought process.
for better or worse, here is my response. i offer it for your own
thought process, neither to advocate for or against, but merely to weigh.
our screen actors guild, from my perspective, is in a very precarious
position. we have been for many years. we have internal fractures that
factions that cannot seem to find common ground and often cannot find
common courtesy. we have had long standing relationships, like our
agency franchise agreements, lost. we have seen our relations with our
sister union, aftra, equally degraded.
additionally, our industry is undergoing enormous seismic shifts. i’m
sure i do not need to point out that the pillars of our television and
film systems are crumbling. a new technology is emerging to challenge
the traditional formats and models. we are finally becoming an
industry of the 21st century, but we are still tenaciously holding to
structures from the 1900′s – structures of production, distribution,
accounting, financing, etc. the necessity for “professionals” in the
entertainment industry is being constantly challenged.
in a time when i believe all the creative unions should be sitting
down with the producers and joining together to protect our mutual
interest in keeping our industry professional and profitable, we
instead pursue selfish self-interest and the marginalization of each
other. we don’t need the outside world to destroy us, we can do it
ourselves.
however, sag has a very current dilemna and it needs a resolution. to
strike over issues that are real and legitimate, or not. our best
interests are not being represented with the current offer and our
reps feel that only austere behavior can move this negotiation
forward. but the reality is that to do so, we would subject our entire
industry to a work stoppage during the most catastrophic financial
times in the last 50 years. can sag afford to be the nail in the
coffin while being so close to being the corpse inside it?
my personal feeling is – no. i cannot in good conscience vote to take
a stand that i know will stop good men and women from earning their
livings at this time. i cannot stand on a picket line and prevent
grips and gaffers and technicians and operators and caterers and
office staff from earning their livings. i can’t send jobs that should
be under sag contracts scurrying over to the even worse conditions of
an aftra contract. i cannot tell people who are struggling that i come
first. i just cannot.
what i am willing to do is accept a lesser contract and ride out these
most turbulent of times. or better yet, i would ask our reps to accept
the best version of the current deal but only for an 18-24 month
limit. at that time, sag would have first and best crack at
establishing a realistic contract going forward, instead of being the
last guys into the pool. the dga sets the bar in each negotiation and
we get relegated to those parameters all the time. let’s be the first
union in going forward, instead of the last.
also, during those 2 years, we could and must focus on the two issues
that diminish us the most – the vast internal chasm of our own union
and the ever-growing gulf that divides us from ourselves in aftra. we
must repair our houses. if our own ground is not firm, how can we
possibly expect to make a stand for others? we have work to do, not
work to stop.
we can survive a few years of less than perfect compensation in order
to do the hard work of mending our own broken bones. we need to
support each other. we need to understand each other. and we need,
more than ever to work together with our fellow creative artists to
protect each other and our industry as a whole. that is the best and
greatest work we can be doing right now. not drawing lines in the sand
over digital residuals.
yes, proper compensation is vital. yes, there are issues to fight for.
but we are not an army ready to stand alone right now. nor are our
allies ready to support us in that fight. so before we take arms,
let’s pause and rally our troops, truly understand what we are
fighting for and stand together. for that, we need time, focus and
some very hard work.
i am voting no to strike authorization for now. we have other work to do.
i wish you all a happy, healthy, peaceful, successful holiday and i
look to our new year, and our new country with optimism and hopefulness.
your colleague,
jason alexander
Not a very impressive list…
If Rosenberg has come back to his senses, he will call off the strike authorization vote, and sign the AMPTP contract before Christmas, so the tens of thousands of us below-the-liners and out of work actors can have a better holiday and look forward to finally getting back to work and paying our bills in 2009. Enough is enough already. And with all respect to the actors who signed this list, seriously, none of them with the exception of Mel Gibson, has any clout. And even he has none, in regards to influencing other actors.
WGA Writer with Business Sense probably was stockpiling scripts and giving them to producers before the WGA strike to make surviving the strike easier for producers. S/he probably supported his/her guild to strike alone rather than consolidate action by merely working without a contract for a few months rather than hitting the bricks. S/he probably supported the WGA saying “we’re striking” many months before the contract ended to give more producers to prepare for a protracted WAG strike. Now s/he thinks that the very first list of SAG actors to sign a statement in support of SAG means that those not on the list would scab during any SAG strike.
Business sense?! Business sense from where? Did you make a phone call to the Breiman school watching an infomercial that changed your life? Listen, cowboy. Lists don’t mean shit. Picket lines don’t mean shit. The only thing that matters to strike leverage is stars refusing to show up for work if there is a strike. Stars had to honor their contracts and waltz right past your lines, as you should have known, when you struck. Stars won’t be showing up for work if there’s a strike. Any premature tiny listing of stars who put their own self-interest aside means about as much as a listing of 18,000 unverified and comically fake names who sign some useless petition to stop a strike.
Each star will get one vote just like any other actor on the strike authorization ballot. But if we get authorization then producers still refuse to negotiate, then the list of stars willing to work during a SAG strike will be exactly as long as a list of snakes in Hawaii.
“Business sense”. If you don’t write comedy you should. You’re hilarious.
If you mistakenly think this list is impressive you have a very short memory.
Where is EVERY SINGLE ACTING NOMINEE from last year’s Golden Globes and Oscars, all of whom stood in rock solid unanimous support of the WGA strike?
Hmm?
Those A-listers are not on this list. Which means they don’t support the strike authorization, because, as we’ve already seen, they will put their careers on the line by boycotting the shows that MAKE careers, the Globes and the Oscars.
Alan Rosenberg is a nice, well intentioned man who is being goaded mercilessly by Nick Counter, is apparently having a hard time in his personal life, and looking for a fight he can win.
Strike authorization means a strike. SAG members know they will lose more than they will win, and what they may lose is SAG itself as every feature film and pilot goes AFTRA.
People insult actors constantly, say they are dumb, but I promise you, 75 % of actors are smarter than you think and will vote resoundingly no on the strike authorization if Rosenberg proceeds with asking for it.
Hopefully the emergency board meeting will result in a withdrawl of the strike authorization so that SAG can retain some dignity and finally merge with AFTRA to come back strong in two years.
OK, great. So you 30 well-known folks support going on strike at the worst possible time in American economic history (outside, of course, the Great Depression). That’s fantastic. Then the entire city – millions and millions and millions of people who either directly work in or depend upon production for their survival – they can all count on you 30 incredible, brave and generous people supporting them financially while you shut everything down? Those millions of people will be very grateful for your monetary support seeing as how you’re talking about destroying their lives and all.
If you’re willing to pick up the bill for everyone’s expenses while you create financial havoc and drive the business and the city into ruin, then you go right on ahead and strike. But you’re not, are you? Then quit day-dreaming and scaring the living hell out of everyone in the region with your completely insane talk of a strike at a time like this. Wake up, sign the contract and pick this issue up again in three years. With some real negotiators, not actors trying to play that role. We, the community (who greatly outnumber the membership of SAG incidentally), should not have to pay the price for your leadership’s business ineptitude.
Oh, and by the way. The one way you might get out of floating the aforementioned bill is if the AMPTP does what they said they would do and just bypass you by shooting on video and hiring AFTRA actors. Then it won’t matter how long you strike because SAG will be history.
Many A-listers are also producers. Just sayin’.
Red Eye,
Producers are not the enemy. George Clooney and Tom Hanks are producers who create product and employ union workers, they are heros. They are not media conglomerates, they are not union busters. Please, please be intelligent and don’t turn complicated things like the relationship between multi-national media conglomerates like Newscorp and Artists’ Unions like SAG into a shirts and skins “Producers” vs. “Actors” fight.
Producers are not the enemy. We WANT artists to be producers, we want the people who decide whether a movie gets greenlit to be people who care about quality and who care about all the artists who work on a film to be treated well and to share in the profit.
A strike is not always a good idea, and in this case a strike authorization is not a deterrent, it’s actually the opposite. The companies want a strike so that they can bust SAG once and for all. They want AFTRA to be the default actor’s union. This is very clear to me, and I have a feeling it’s very clear to the very smart business people who are the A-list actors who are NOT on this list.
Read between the lines. Alan Rosenberg is being goaded into a strike by Nick Counter, who has nothing to lose from a strike and everything to gain. SAG has no leverage, AFTRA has a contract. Any production that is potentially a SAG production is potentially an AFTRA production. Directors and Writers are contractually bound to work on go AFTRA shows, it’s not crossing a picket line to do so.
It just means everything will move forward and become AFTRA and SAG will become almost instantly defunct.
It’s very simple and very devious. Why a smart, good-hearted guy like Alan Rosenberg can’t see it is beyond me. Doug Allen probably sees it and is ignoring it because he’s famous if there’s a strike and nobody if there’s not.
You have to examine people’s motivations in a case like this.
I’m going to look at this another way.
I believe that Alan Rosenberg has misplayed his hand here several different times and I believe he is doing so again now.
The reason SAG is in the position it’s in is because we burned so many bridges with the other unions and we didn’t work together. Rosenberg and the board don’t realize that you can’t just walk into a room and make people do what you want them to do because you say so.
As a result the producers signed deals with all the other unions, including our sister union, which left us with absolutely zero leverage in these negotiations.
That was the first giant mistake.
Now, if Alan proceeds with this vote and it fails — and I strongly suspect that it will fail (I doubt we even get a simple majority, much less 75%) — then we will have even more egg on our faces and we might as well not bother showing up for a new round of talks lest we’re ready to accept what they have already offered.
What we have here is a failure in strategy and tactics. First let me say that I strongly support adding residuals to new media platforms. But that feeling doesn’t matter unless we have a coherent strategy to get us exactly that, otherwise we’re just thrashing in the wind. As it is, we have a negotiating board which talks a lot about getting us these concessions but ultimately fails to get us these things because they have a poor strategy and employ even worse tactics.
Listen people, it’s time to stop digging ourselves deeper into this hole. This isn’t working. We’re moving backwards here. It’s time for Alan Rosenberg and the Board to really start listening to its members and members of other guilds/unions.
It’s time to change course. If Alan can’t do that, then I think he should resign. There’s no need to take all of SAG down with him.
dear WGA WRITER with BUSINESS SENSE
with all due respect, sir or ma’am,
you don’t know your ass from third base, and i question your boast that you possess ‘business sense’.
it’s a bit convenient that you say the WGA strike made sense and the
potential of a SAG strike doesn’t.
you are showing yourself to be like every other frightened, selfish
person who believes in doing what’s right and fair as long as it doesn’t interrupt their revenue stream.
a merge with AFTRA in NO WAY ensures greater leverage or clout in future negotiations.
to the contrary, history shows us that in joint negotiations with SAG, AFTRA, (along with sympathetic NY and RBD SAG elements)
has caved in time after time, taking the easy way out.
taking whatever the AMPTP offered, and thereby delivering less than
desirable deals to the membership.
this is why there has been no improvement in the DVD formula for over 20 years.
the duplicitous Richard Masur, who was the architect of the plan to
agree to a strike authorization if mediation failed, is now the leader of the “just vote no” campaign. he is double dealing. they are trying to buy it back. why? because they’re damn scared 75% of the voting membership will vote for the strike authorization and then THEY,
the controlling faction of the national board, will be put in the position of having to say YES to the strike, or NO we won’t do that at this time.
they don’t want to be put into that position. they want to have their cake and eat it too. they want the membership to believe that they want everything Membership First wants and more, but the truth is they aren’t willing to fight for anything. Masur has stated at board meetings that he would never strike, ever, under any conditions.
what kind of a leader is that? a compliant one.
the kind the AMPTP likes.
it seems that the Masur/U4S/ USAN plan was to agree publicly to an
authorization and then do everything they could to subvert it.
it is a purely political move with no regard for the welfare of the membership.
Masur has also been e-mailing people, telling them of the moves that the negotiating committee made, couching it by saying, “With everything that is publicly know, it appears that the negotiating committee made blunders regarding DVDs, … ” etc.
while some of his so-called “publicly known’ facts are just bullshit,
the truth is that Masur has breached his oath of confidentiality.
he is a member of the goddammed negotiating committee and is not supposed to talk about anything that happened in those rooms.
a yes vote for a strike authorization DOES NOT IMMEDIATELY
GUARANTEE A STRIKE.
THE NATIONAL BOARD, WHICH IS CONTROLLED BY MASUR AND HIS POSSE, WOULD HAVE TO APPROVE IT.
THEY DON’T WANT THAT. IF THE MEMBERSHIP VOTES YES IN A RESOUNDING FASHION, THEN THEY WILL BE PUT IN THE POSITION OF HAVING TO HONOR THE WILL OF THE MEMBERSHIP, OR SAY NO AND THEREBY PUT THEMSELVES AT RISK, POLITICALLY SPEAKING.
THIS IS ANATHEMA TO THEM. THEY ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH BEING FORTHRIGHT AND LETTING THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY.
THEY SEEM TO BE MORE COMFORTABLE SNIPING,
TAKING CHEAP SHOTS,
SUBVERTING, AND GENERALLY HATCHING MACHIAVELLIAN PLOTS
THAN THEY ARE WITH STANDING OUT IN THE OPEN.
THEY ARE SNEAK-WEENIES.
THEY WILL, IF ALLOWED, LEAD SAG INTO OBLIVION.
blivit,
Why do you have to be so vulgar and insulting? He’s making a valid point. Is it possible for someone to have an opinion different than yours without you resorting to childish name-calling.
to hubris/hysteria
perhaps someday all actors other than stars will be replaced with CGI.
then you won’t have to be bothered by pesky, upstart actors getting in the way of you making a living.
but until that time, you will just have to accept the fact that YOU are in some way dependent upon US.
NO ACTORS WORKING IN TV AND FILMS? = NO MILLIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE WORKING IN FILMS.
sorry, you can hate us and resent us but that’s the way it is right now.
you are suggesting we take it in the ass so you don’t have to worry.
again, sorry, but i’m not okay with that.
are you IATSE? are you happy with the deal your leaders just made for
you? you’re getting screwed by the AMPTP.
it’s their plan to grind us all down.
believe it or not, actors aren’t the enemy.