Stars Sign Onto SAG ‘Solidarity Campaign’

COMMENTS (30)

• Jason Alexander

  “I cannot tell people who are struggling that I come
  first. I just cannot.”

  Jason – who exactly would those people be? And how on God’s green earth do you construe this possible strike might be interpreted by ANYBODY as “you” come first?

  When you and Michael Richards and Julia Louis Dreyfus were kvetching over the lack of height of the piles of money on the “Seinfeld” DVD deal, “you” certainly came first, didn’t you?

  Do you think people don’t remember – middle class actors – don’t remember, that when YOUR ass was at stake in a negotiation with producers over YOUR cut, you were ANYWHERE but worrying how, if the DVD got the kibosh because of you and your 2 co-star’s demands, the OTHER people who would benefit from the sale might “suffer.”

  NOW that you have made more money from “Seinfeld” than the gross national product of Bolivia, you are CONCERNED about the ancillary businesses and people who might suffer if SAG acts to protect the ability of middle class actors to make a living. Wow. I would share a foxhole with you anytime pal – you’re a real hero.

  Now that the reruns of “Seinfeld” have run and run and run and run – and you have been paid and paid and paid and paid, plus your obscene upfront salary for all the episodes, you find the magnanimity of the truly blessed towards all the little people. How do you think all the below the line folks on “Seinfled” felt when YOU got the golden goose, while THEY got cuts to make the budget work so you, Dreyfus, Richards and Seinfeld could get the weekly transfer of 9 truckloads of gold bullion in exchange for, let’s face it, a few yuks?

  So, understand Jason, you made the fuck-you money, you got the brass ring, good for you – but be damn careful who you say “fuck you” to right now. The fact that YOU can ride out the coming shitstorm, whether we strike or not, doesn’t mean it’s a great move to tell all your fellow middle-class union brothers and sisters, that, like you, we should all be magnanimous and eat this shit contract that phases out residuals, takes away clip consent, turns actors into walking sandwich boards for product placement, strips us of force majeure protections we’ve had since 1937 and, oh, right, doesn’t budge on the 22 year old ass-fucking we got on DVD residuals (you didn’t have to worry about that rate, did you Jason?).

  Your non-star, middle class, union brothers and sisters should be FIRST Jason, NOT, as much as we ALL worry about the fallout of a possible strike, the dolly grip from “Heroes” or the snake wrangler on the next Nicholas Cage picture.

  What we – your fellow UNION members need right now Jason – is YOU. If YOU and a few THOUSAND of your overpaid brethren would get up off their fat lazy asses and STAND with us – we might not even BE in this mess in the first place.

  So please, excuse me if, now that an actual STAR such as yourself has FINALLY gotten off the fucking fence and spoken out – YOU BLEW IT.

  We won’t forget. I would blame it on Ambien and booze and issue an apology and a rewrite. There’s still time…

  Comment by Matt Mulhern — Sunday December 14, 2008 @ 7:41pm PST  Reply to this post

• In Solidarity,

  Well, you’ve made a lot of guesses about me that are totally wrong. I was working on a series when the strike went down, and my series got cancelled, it couldn’t survive the downtime. I also had a feature deal go down. I’m still paying off my strike loans, though I’m working again, on a feature assignment. I lost money I’ll never get back, so, in fact, I paid the price of the strike as did most upper middle class working members. I believed it was necessary, but will never make up the losses, the gains will be made by my kids, should they become writers, which I devoutly hope they won’t.

  You are completely missing the point. We WGA members knew that actors had a no-strike clause and had no expectations of them walking, though we appreciated their picket line support. Furthermore, I believe that it was, in fact, the solidarity of actors walking off the Globes and threatening the Oscars that forced the moguls to shove Nick Counter aside and close the deal offering far more than they wanted to.

  If SAG strikes there will be no scabs at all, there will simply be SAG members who are also AFTRA members legitimately going to work on movies and TV shows that will become AFTRA shows and SAG will fade into oblivion.

  That’s why the so-called threat of strike authorization is, in fact, no threat at all to the AMPTP.

  Jason Alexander’s somewhat long-winded missive could be summed up in one sentence.

  Actors will have no bargaining leverage as long as they split themselves into two unions, one of which is traditionally WAY easier to negotiate with.

  Until SAG and AFTRA merge, there will be no effective bargaining for actors. If SAG strikes (as the AMPTP would like it to) they will be signing their own death warrant, as every pilot and go movie becomes an AFTRA show.

  It’s so obvious. AMPTP wants a SAG strike. A strike authorization isn’t leverage, it’s a wish come true for the AMPTP. It’s the end of SAG.

  Seriously, before you fly off the handle dreaming up insults based on your fictional version of my life story, think about it. If you were a bunch of media moguls and you could have all actors, stars and extras alike under one union that ALWAYS capitulates when contracts come around, wouldn’t you prefer that? That would be the only thing better than the current system, where you play actors off against each other (despite the fact that most working members belong to both unions).

  Meanwhile, attacking Jason Alexander for being rich is just simply retarded. He has no dog in this hunt, financially speaking, which makes his willingness to speak out so wisely and compassionately all the more admirable. He’s telling the truth, it may make him unpopular, he has nothing to gain financially, he is honestly thinking of the millions that will be lost by the entire state of California, at a time when we can least afford to loose it, and all for a fight that will gain actors nothing.

  Jason Alexander is brave and he is telling the truth.

  Alan Rosenberg is a good guy who has lost his way.

  I sincerely hope the emergency meeting of the board results in a withdrawl of the strike authorization vote, and a settling of the contract before the end of the year.

  Comment by WGA writer with Business Sense — Monday December 15, 2008 @ 12:21am PST  Reply to this post

• WGA Writer with business sense
  With all due respect: your take is so full of holes I just put it on toasted rye and ate it.

  The idea that the AMPTP is “praying for a SAG strike” is such a truly jaw-dropingly ignorant statement, it’s almost hard to respond.

  First SAG does NOT want to strike. NO ONE in SAG odes. But, this contract removes the ability of middle-class actors to even have a shot at making a living, and the AMPTP will NEVER return to renegotiate once they begin to establish a business model in new media and a reliable profit stream, and are then getting used to not paying residuals, no clip consent allowing them to manipulate actors images in new product, using old product — the possibilities are endless, and none of them are good for actors, product placement will become ridiculous. You won’t just be EATING in a MacDonald’s in the next “The Day the Earth Stood Still” – Keanu Reeves will say “you humans are destroying the planet… but this is an awesome Big Mac.” Believe me, that’s not far from what they have in mind.

  WGA Writer with business sense supports Jason Alexander’s “bravery” because he “has not dog in this fight” therefore he’s speaking the truth, a truth not many may want to hear. Bullshit. Alexander is selling out his union brothers and sisters from atop a pile of money three stories high, admonishing us muddle-class actors that “we’ll hurt the little people if we strike, and that makes Jason sad, and in good conscience, Jason can’t support that.” What utter horseshit. Jason should get his fucking priorities straight and understand where he came from and put his name and reputation on the line to come to the defense of those of us who are the verge of being exterminated.

  And, last time I checked, AFTRA doesn’t do film – digital or not. So, ALL film stops, except for the indie features SAG has granted waivers to. That’s a KILLER for the AMPTP, make no mistake about it. They are NOT praying for that, that’s for damn sure. And TV? ALL SAG shows stop on a dime. CAN AFTRA swoop in and take the current ones over and organize ALL the new ones? In a word – NO. Will AFTRA, true to form, do everything it can to fuck SAG and increase it’s jurisdiction and power at SAG’s expense, Of course they will. When have they done anything but that?

  But, this will end someday, and let me tell you, when it does, and SAG turns from this fight, the next one is going to be with it’s union “sister” AFTRA – and that fight will be a “Once and for all” fight.

  And the main reason your take on this pisses me off Writer? YOU’RE a WRITER – A WRITER SAG SUPPORTED WITH HEART AND SOUL. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself you coward.

  Comment by Matt Mulhern — Monday December 15, 2008 @ 1:52pm PST  Reply to this post

• All of the vitriol the “Vote Yes” crowd spews is now venturing rapidly into self-parody. They’re not saying anything new. They’re regurgitating exactly the same arguments that had a great deal more merit back in August before the economy changed from a slow descent into an outright nose-down crash.

  Except that now anyone who disagrees with them isn’t just wrong; he or she is a “coward” or a “liar.” Those on the NYC SAG board “grew vaginas” (about as insulting and misogynist a statement as one can get). Any writer who opposes the strike “should be ashamed” because SAG members supported them when we struck in an entirely different economic climate. If you say you oppose the strike because of the impact it will have on the industry community as a whole, you are “selfish and afraid” (if not outright lying because you’re a producer, or you’re too rich to care or whatever the talking point du jour is). If you oppose the strike, the Vote Yes crowd “will never forget.”

  “Never forget?” What is that? A threat? You want to meet me after school and throw down? Me and everyone else who thinks that a strike would be a horrible idea at this time, in this economic situation? People who disagree with you in good conscience are the enemy?

  Listen to yourselves. Listen to the venom you’re spewing. What progress are you making? Even your actual, non-invective arguments don’t make any sense.

  The authorization vote is merely a tool? What on earth in the AMPTP’s behavior makes you think they’ll cave in to a positive strike authorization vote? They certainly didn’t to ours. They will call the bluff, and then SAG’s National Board will be in the awkward position of either having to call a crippling strike that will brutalize the entire industry at a terrible time, or will have to turn tail and lose what credibility they have left.

  Many of the Vote Yes people seem to want a strike to teach those bastards at the AMPTP a lesson. What do you think the lesson will be? Ladies and gentlemen, we saw this play out less than a year ago. The strike will drag on for months, hurting people’s families and livelihoods. SAG’s membership will begin to grow weary. The AMPTP will return to the table and make an offer only marginally better than the one SAG is currently rejecting – returning the FM clauses and giving back clip consent, say – and SAG will accept it. A historic victory will be declared.

  Accept the gains in the contract for all the “future generations” we care so much about will not come close to replacing the revenues lost during the strike if you factor in the work that will be lost from all the shows that will end up canceled or unproduced. This is not even to speak of the collateral damage to non-actors.

  This is what kills me, though. I can already read the responses: I’ll be labeled a turncoat, coward, traitor, shill and whatever else. But nobody is going to refute this scenario because it is what will happen.

  The Yes Men say that it’s possible that a strike authorization vote will move the AMPTP to proffer a better deal (and it might), but the notion that a new negotiating committee might do the same thing is a non-starter for them. Doesn’t it make more sense to try that first? The Yes Men demand an authorization vote, but refuse to put the proffered agreement to a vote. Why?

  Again and again, the Yes Men howl “bully!” They scream “victim!” They shout loud and long in the echo chamber, more ferociously now than ever before because they see their own dogmatic position falling apart before their eyes and it – what? – challenges their manhood?

  Understand: if the authorization vote takes place at all (and God willing, it won’t and we can all move on), the amount of pressure applied to every member of SAG to vote “Yes” will be epic. You’ll be called all kinds of names if you have doubts. You’ll be “remembered” (and possibly challenged to a fight after school). It took me a while to figure out what these people represent. There’s a fairly common internet community term for them. Most of the Yes Men are trolls. They want to fight for fighting’s own sake rather than actually achieving any goal. They want to rant and yell and scream.

  The only sensible vote is No. Don’t be bullied or browbeaten by a handful of men and women who have staked their reputations (both online and in the real world) on labor unrest for its own sake.

  Comment by WGA Writer 2 — Tuesday December 16, 2008 @ 9:59am PST  Reply to this post

• WGA Writer 2

  Huh? Look, let’s keep this real simple:

  a vote for a strike authorization is NOT a vote to strike. Okay? Do you follow the logic of that?

  it simply means the negotiators can walk in and say “here it is, now, do YOU want to cause a work stoppage, or do YOU want to negotiate – for the FIRST time – instead of dictating a fait accompli that will put middle class actors out of work?

  then, AMPTP says “yes” or “no.”

  it is possible, of course, it could go either way. but, sag will never know what WILL happen unless they GET THERE first.

  if they say “no” the negotiating committee has to take it back to the national board and they will make the final decision. with me?

  comparing the wga srike to sag striking, all due respect, is like comparing a small town community protest to war of the worlds. the amptp is MUCH MUCH more worried about sag than they were about wga striking.

  all film stops. on a dime. except indies with sag waivers.

  95% of all network scripted prime-time stops. on a dime.

  the hassle, cost and uncertainty of shifting to aftra shows with the new pilots will be very troubling for the amptp. in addition to that, aftra just released a statement indicating they are thinking long and hard about taking undue advantage of sag’s current crisis. not that they won’t. but they are at least troubled by a bad relationship, caused by them, with sag, that will get a LOT worse if they start dancing on sag’s grave a little too early. could come back to haunt them and they know it.

  the argument that sag isn’t going to get anything worth the struggle of actually striking if they are forced to is, coming from it’s source, understandable. despite the stalwart support of sag and the sympathy of the public, the wga caved too early and took a shitty deal they are already accusing the amptp of not living up to.

  so, yeah, “wga writer 2″ I’m not surprised you’re not so sure about the whole “strike” thing.

  the “new negotiating committee thing” is a non-starter. sag rules. you’d help yourself if you familiarized yourself with at least some of them before your next post. saves time.

  you are seriously misconstruing the sentiment that “many of you seem to want a strike to teach those bastards a lesson.”

  no. nobody wants to strike. we would like, however, to be able to have a shot at making a living, so, you know, we might actually have to show some resolve.

  which leads to the “manly – are you gonna beat me up – blah, blah blah” thing.

  no. but you should really stop telling middle class actors what you think. because you’re not a middle class actor. so, we don’t really care what you think, believe it or not. you’re a writer whose union caved, costing the industry greatly while not achieving any real goals. so, thanks for the advice, but we’ll pass.

  Comment by Matt Mulhern — Tuesday December 16, 2008 @ 8:05pm PST  Reply to this post