SAG’s New Leadership Squanders A-List Assisted Opportunity For Backchannel Communications With Hollywood CEOs

COMMENTS (75)

• Despite his two acting trophies, and his enjoyable “aw shucks” persona, when Tom Hanks is dead and buried, his true legacy to his craft will be how he seriously undermined his union at a critical time, and helped destroy a longstanding residual system which his fellow actors depended on for survival.

  Like many celebrities, Hanks is a narcissist, and his needs must be met above all. Residuals mean nothing to him. $20 million paydays, his many tv productions and cozy relationships with CEOs do. While people are losing their homes and having their savings wiped out, Hanks’s dinner party companions Iger and Chernin have secured “golden coffin” deals which will pay them well after their deaths. Yet, this is who Hanks has sided with, because, ever the needy actor, he craves their approval.

  Celebrities like Hanks are very liberal until it affects their lifestyle. Then the true colors come out.

  Comment by Vanishing Middle Class — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 9:55am PDT  Reply to this post

• Spot on, David Anthony Pizzuto!

  The AMPTP’s rumor mill has been spinning so fast that most of us, SAG members, on every side and/or in the middle, are dizzy and about ready to puke.

  SAG members, everywhere, please, WAKE UP! Don’t listen to ANYBODY! Do your own research. Take the time to READ, for yourselves, the Producers’ proposed SH***Y DEAL (on the AMPTP’s website). This deal heralds an end to residuals, force majeure, pre-say on pushing products within scripted content, and SAG’s, no-brainer, clip consent protections of our images, voices, and likenesses. But, please, in your own best interests, READ, and STUDY, the proposed crappy deal on the AMPTP’s website. Compare it with SAG’s hard-fought for and won (now expired) Motion Picture and TV/Theatrical (Exhibit “A”) Agreements. This stinky deal is the AMPTP’s scaled-down, rolled-back, take it or leave it smelly “turd.” It’s the producers’ and network’s shared wet-dream to get rid of Residuals and/or an attempt to destroy Actors and the Screen Actors Guild, itself! But, please, don’t just take my word for this, onerous, plot to destroy Actors. And, don’t take the word of former SAG Senior Counsel, now, Interim NED, David White that the “deal sucks!” Read, and study it, for yourselves. Then, maybe you might even be able to make up a worse word to describe this, alleged, soon to be IMPOSED, SH***Y DEAL.

  Please, always remember, as it pertains, particularly, to the bu$ine$$ of Show: “Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see ‘em do.”

  Comment by Renee Aubry — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 10:01am PDT  Reply to this post

• Soleyn wrote…
  “many of us rely on the Pension & Health and Health & Retirement benefits.
  Those funds are in trouble.
  A strike, for instance would decimate SAG P&H.”

  The real story is that if all funds were cut off tomorrow, SAG P&H would have SEVENTEEN YEARS of benefits in the bank ready to pay out. Nice try, AMPTP!

  Comment by Keep Trying... — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 10:31am PDT  Reply to this post

• Bravo2009,

  N-E-V-A G-O-N-N-A H-A-P-P-E-N!

  To many different agendas for it even to be considered not to mention actually organizing it.
  (prime example: SAG & AFTRA cant agree to work together and they both represent actors – you have to realize that actors have different needs and desires from directors and directors have different needs and desires from writers etc – yes there are issues of common ground but far more issues that would put the different groups at odds)

  Comment by It Sounds Good Though — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 10:54am PDT  Reply to this post

• shut the hell up and take the deal. it’s the best you’re going to get. deal with it.

  Comment by MacAttack — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 11:04am PDT  Reply to this post

• I remember when getting a SAG Card was an honor… There’s no honor left!

  Comment by Anonymous — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 11:12am PDT  Reply to this post

• Tom Hanks was quoted at an early meeting at SAG as saying “I don’t care if you want paper or plastic – just take the directors deal.”

  Now, while I certainly agree with the assessment that, from everything I’ve heard as well, he’s a swell guy, this statement and his behavior since give me pause.

  I know you UFS/NY/RBD/USAN people want merger for personal reasons, not unimportant – they may be completely unimportant to everybody else, but, to you, they’re important. Fair enough.

  But, my sense is, Hanks knows plenty about the thinking of the Peter Chernin’s and the Bob Iger’s and that he probably had a sense very, very early on, say, oh, right after these guys announced in the NY Times in July ’07, that they “were going to end residual payments,” what the future according to these fellows looked like.

  I mean, they all SEEM like swell people, but, one wonders, from their behavior, Meryl Streep (?), Clooney, Hanks – three of the “NICEST PEOPLE – THEY’RE SO NICE – HOW COULD THEY NOT BE ACTING IN OUR BEST INTERESTS CAUSE THEY ARE THE NICEST PEOPLE IN THE UNIVERSE – NOT JUST SHOW BUSINESS – THEY ARE SO NNNNIIIIIIICCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ”

  One wonders, if, at an early point, the AMPTP went to them – not, you know, just anyone, but, the NICE ones, and said – “look, here’s the totally inside poop (“how flattering,” even the biggest star thinks, “I’m being covered in INSIDE poop”) – we are asking you, being trusted and respected, as you are (“ooh, I do declare,” swoons Meryl) to be THE go-betweens between us and labor peace in the 21st century in the movie and TV business. (“Wow. Us? I mean, I know I’m HUGE, but, this is appealing to my HUGENESS in a, frankly, HUGE way”) -

  “Here’s the media landscape, as we see it, here’s what WE need – not just US – but WE, to have a shot, in this crazy, ever-changing world, just, you know, among us HUGE, to make this work. Here’s what we’re thinking, here’s where we see things going in ‘new media,’ – we don’t want to go the way of the music business, and we are asking you to intercede to SAVE THE INDUSTRY by being our ‘covert’ emissaries to ‘your people’ because we know the actors, SAG specifically, with that crazy Rosenberg and that insane Allen running it right now, are gonna think, given half a chance – they’re gonna think ‘the AMPTP is SCREWING us.’ ”

  “But, just here, just in this room, among us HUGE, we are telling YOU people, you very special people, that, without YOUR HUGENESS in reaching out, and helping this process along, that this industry, this ENTIRE HUGE INDUSTRY, will be jeopardized.”

  “So, specifically, we want your HUGE input, number one – give us the trusted advice of what your hugenesses think about all this (and we’ll, as soon as you walk out that door, file it under “chickenshit from fucking stars susceptible to flattery”) and then, together, we’ll figure out how you can go out there, and like Lafayette in the creation of this nation, be emissaries for good, by convincing your people what is in the best interests of ALL of us (translation: “fuck actors” – in suit-speak – but these stars don’t understand our language, so we can say this in front of them”).

  Hence: “We HUGE actors are appealing to ‘our union’ (well, you know, in theory) to ‘negotiate early’ – we are TELLING YOU (hint !! – hint !! ) to NEGOTIATE EARLY, just because we want to help, we are union brothers and sisters, who simply happen to be HUGE, but, of course, have NEVER forgotten that we were once small – tiny even – like all of you – and you trust us, right? We’re NICE.”

  Then, crazy Rosenberg and Allen DIDN’T PLAY ALONG. Mistake number ONE!

  Turns out – Rosenberg believes in what is “right” instead of what is “achievable,” (DAMMIT!) and Allen doesn’t really CARE about Hanks and Streep and Clooney. In fact, Allen, dear Jesus, is a Rob Schneider fan, and these HUGE people don’t impress him AT ALL – because, this Allen guy – get this! – he actually believes in “one actor – one vote!”

  I mean – you can’t make this UP!

  And, despite the HUGE-ABLES best efforts, the suits are left with a big, fat, time-consuming, immense, profit-blocking, labor problem. The STARS have failed them. ONCE AGAIN!

  “I TOLD you Clooney wouldn’t get us jack-shit!” says Iger to Chernin.

  Says Chernin “No, I told YOU, Streep may have 975 Best Actress awards, going back to the fifth grade, but she can’t even OPEN A FUCKING MOVIE! HOW in the hell did YOU think this was going to work!”

  “NEITHER CAN CLOONEY! HAVE YOU SEEN HIS TRACK RECORD! ‘ LAST MOVIE STAR!? ‘ I’LL TAKE HANNAH MON-FUCKING-TANAH!!” thunders Iger.

  Bryan Lourd then admits “Hanks, maybe 10 years ago? Maybe. Now? It’s O-VER. I TOLD YOU BOTH – but I’m ‘JUST A FUCKING AGENT – I HEARD YOU CHERNIN – don’t think I didn’t hear you say that, you sneaky
  FUCK ! “

  Comment by Anonymous — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 11:22am PDT  Reply to this post

• If you don’t understand why the expiration date is so important than you really haven’t been paying attention here.

  The current leadership of SAG, as well as everyone paying attention to this thing, realizes that negotiations have gone so far off the tracks that no good deal is even salvagable now. Even trying is futile, IMO. Unlike many of you MFers who seemed to question the sincerity of putting together a common front for the next round of negotiations and wrongly believed it was nothing more than a stall tactic, the current leadership — led by UFS — wants to form a united front with AFTRA and the other guilds for the next round of contract negotiations. That way we’ll have maximum leverage so we can actually win serious concessions on issues like new media platforms, residuals, etc.

  You know, the things you MFers claim you want. That’s what UFS always said it wanted to do and it meant it.

  You MF followers/supporters are like the Republicans. You just want the current leadership to fail. That way you can then claim you were right all along.

  I thought you were all about doing what was best for actors? It seems to me that you are only doing what is best for yourselves at this point.

  Pettiness is such an ugly thing.

  Comment by James Brock — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 11:47am PDT  Reply to this post

• Soleyn Fenix-

  I like the cut of your jive.

  Also -

  Is this still going on? I remember a year ago, when this was merely shameless (and not an unholy abomination as it is now) and it seemed silly that SAG could be so remarkably adrift in their ‘efforts’ to get a contract. Really guys, there’s work to do – can we stop wasting time?

  Comment by Rabble, Rabble. — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 12:30pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I love how everyone is still arguing here. Whatever you say on this blog — as fine as it is — matters not one whit in the long run. It’s what you do.

  Instead of saying “someone” needs to do something — go look in the freaking mirror. You are SOMEONE. If you won’t get off your butt and do something why should anyone else?

  No matter what side you are on — take the deal or strike — you can do something. Everyone says there is no work. So what the hell are you doing all day besides posting here? Get out and picket. Grab your friends who are not working and go picket. Pass petitions. Have rallies. You don’t have to know EVERYBODY, you just have to know a few people. You start with them and have each of them bring someone new and so on and so on. It does not take a lot of organizational skills. All it takes IS GETTING YOUR BUTT OFF THE COUCH.

  I am not in the industry nor in Hollywood, so I have no dog in this fight. I want quality product provided by people who are fairly compensated. So, I won’t be doing anything but providing moral support. But the rest of you who claim who are SAG members need to GET YOUR BUTT OFF THE COUCH and start doing something.

  Comment by rosettaresearch — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 1:58pm PDT  Reply to this post

• So let me get this straight, all of you SAG cry babies think that this deal sucks, right??? Then just keep your current deal which has higher residuals. Maybe then you could get back to your “JOB” instead of blowing hot air…

  Also, if you think that the studios WANT to put all of the content on the internet than you have no clue at all. They make far less money than on DVD and TV. Did the record labels want the internet to replace CDs? Of coarse not, but the end users demanded it. They are just trying to ride out the digital storm like everyone else…

  Comment by Current Contract... — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 2:00pm PDT  Reply to this post

• “shut the hell up and take the deal. it’s the best you’re going to get. deal with it.”

  MacAttack, if the membership isn’t going to be given a choice, so don’t worry. The deal is done.

  And to you, James Brock, your posturing and ideology are showing too much. U4S never intended to get a “better deal”, but to just take what was offered. M4F screwed up by fooling around and posturing, rather than putting the SAV to a vote. But U4S has been totally disingenuous. M4F was not.

  And either way, the membership got screwed.

  Comment by helenofpeel — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 2:08pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @ James Brock:
  Your statement smacks of partisanship – the very thing you deride in your last comment. Pettiness.

  Though I don’t count myself a supporter of Membership First, MF isn’t playing the game you suggest. We (the non-U4S people) don’t want the current “leadership” to fail – they’re FAILING whether we like it or not! In many ways, they’re not just “failing”, but have already failed. Again, this isn’t just MF making these observations, it’s everyone who is not U4S. And that coalition is growing each and every day. People who helped vote U4S people to the board are livid about what’s now happening.

  There seems to still be a good deal of mud-slinging towards MF here – the very thing that continues to divide the guild. It’s bullshit. U4S/NY/RBD/USAN has every opportunity right now to heal this guild; to bring the membership back together (that would be the “unite” part of United For Strength – ha!). But they’re not only blowing that, they’re creating further division by not living up to their campaign promises, keeping the membership in the dark about guild issues, not allowing membership to vote and balking on their public statements and promises during their coup d’etat. Not only is nothing better since they’ve been in control, but things are worse. Some coup.

  Even without the newest addendum to the contract (3-year term from signing date), the POS “LBFO” offer would not have passed SAG membership scrutiny. One of the reasons that the current administration won’t let the membership vote is that they’re scared shitless to find out publicly that the membership knows a thing or two about the contract by now, and how damaging it is. And the majority administration has seemingly promised AMPTP no strike. The membership thinks otherwise.

  A good deal is, of course, “salvageable” now and always. It will take leadership, education, effort from all factions, and a big, fat, fucking strike. No more of this SAV hemming and hawing – it’s past time for the membership to stand together and say “enough!”. Or forever wallow in the mud of mediocrity. (Which is to say, merge with AFTRA.)

  In solidarity, SAG member #00635339.

  Comment by Ace — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 2:54pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I keep bumping into Ralph Morgan…because we both keep rolling over in our graves.

  Boys and girls — kick em all out!

  ALL of em, including Hanks, Clooney and whoever else signed that reprehensible letter way back when.

  This is YOUR Union, not a bunch of fat cat actor/producers and 1970s hasbeen TV stars who could care less about you anymore.

  Comment by Eddie Cantor — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 3:19pm PDT  Reply to this post

• The only empirical evidence we have of the will of the membership in relation to the current LBF is the postcard poll on the previous and quite similar LBF, which was an overwhelming rejection.

  The corporate appeasers’ game plan may well be to get the AMPTP to back off on the length of the contract, declare victory and rather than sending the marginally modified new new LBF to the membership, simply sit on their lands and let the AMPTP enforce it.

  We know U4S organized around the issue of qualified voting. It is certainly within the parameters of that kind of mind-set to implement a contract without a vote.

  Comment by mheister — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 4:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

• VOguy wrote:

  “financial core is pointless, because SAG has no power; I can, after this contract, work with impunity, because if the studios want to hire me as an actor on a film, they will, union or non, and SAG’s actions against me if I violate global rule 1 won’t amount to much at all.”

  And this is bad, how?

  You mean you’ll be in complete control of your own destiny? You won’t be held hostage by some outdated union the way you are now?

  Sounds like WIN, WIN to me.

  Comment by Joe Cool — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 5:48pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @ LA VO:

  Have you even READ the proposed contract?

  Comment by Luzid — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 6:24pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @ macb:

  You should be ashamed for being a fucking doucehbag shill. At least Cagney stands for something, instead of falling for anything.

  Comment by Luzid — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 6:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @ MacAttack (aka macb? so little creativity…)

  Actors will not give up their future, or their kids’ future, for your present.

  Fuck you for demanding they do so.

  Comment by Luzid — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 7:38pm PDT  Reply to this post

• So, I am just a poor IATSE member engaged in a brewing civil war within my own union. But, when you stage a coup and oust the legitimate government, shouldn’t you have some sort of plan?

  Shameful that the UFS and their cohorts did what they did and have no plan. I mean they should at least live up to their rightfully earned title “Sell Out” and put the contract out so that you guys can approve it.

  Oh, what’s that? The overwhelming majority of the SAG membership will vote against the LBFO? Oh, so the saving grace of SAG, the UFS, is just going to let the expiration date come up so the AMPTP can enforce their Last “Best” and Final Offer.

  You guys have networks. Infrastructure. Phone trees. WHY ARE YOU NOT MARCHING ON YOUR OWN HEADQUARTERS. Do something!!!!!!

  Because maybe, just maybe, if you do something and force them to let you vote on this contract, which will be handily voted down. And our ridiculously horrendous and devastating contract gets voted down we can unite. Because there is an unheard of groundswell of anger and support for change in the IA. And between the two of us, we can get what we earn and deserve from the corporations.

  Whatever happens. For those of you fighting against this contract and these leadership challenges you are facing. You have this IATSE member’s support.

  Calvin Starnes
  Local 80 – Grip

  Comment by Calvin Starnes — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 9:06pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Joe Cool is right. As a tool, financial core would be a huge one right now. It should and must be the total and 100% right of most members to have a fair deal. If the “stars” are doing everything in their power to make you take a horrible deal, Finanical Core may be the only tool you have left.

  Forming one united guild maybe a good idea on paper, but it isn’t overall because most people have different needs, even in the same guild. Even Tom Hanks and George Clooney have different needs and they are two people that have been destroyed in the past year for supporting the AMPTP. The same could be said for President Obama vs former President W. Bush. A ton of things had to be changed in the transition to a new President.

  As for the old SAG, it is clear that the multimillionaires have taken over the guild while AFTRA refuses to do their job. Financial core is needed and can be used to form a new guild called the Actors Guild of America (AGA). The new guild can even have the muscle to destroy AFTRA through financial core and make those decisions stick through legal muscle. After a while the AMPTP will have no recourse but to recongize the AGA as the only actors union in town.

  Good Luck and Godspeed.

  Comment by Jessy S. — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 10:25pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I’d like to help, but I’m on ET tonight promoting my new TV guest shot…Surry’bout’that…

  Comment by Anonymous — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 10:39pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Jessy S’s idea concerning Financial Core is excellent!

  I didn’t know what it meant so I looked it up and it is a very interesting strategic move that individual actors could take against SAG’s malfeasance and incompetence.

  To whit, here is a brief explanation of Financial Core (from Wikipedia):

  “Under the National Labor Relations Act (Sec. 8 (a) (3)) an employer and a labor organization may agree to condition employment upon membership in the union. The 1963 ruling limited the burdens of membership upon which employment may be conditioned to the payment of initiation fees and monthly dues. In the words of the court, “Membership as a condition of employment is whittled down to its financial core.” Or, in other words, “If an employee in a union shop unit refuses to respect any union-imposed obligations other than the duty to pay dues and fees, and membership in the union is therefore denied or terminated, the condition of membership for 8 (a) (3) purposes is nevertheless satisfied and the employee may not be discharged for nonmembership even though he is not a formal member.”

  In 1988, the Supreme Court again addressed the financial core issue in Communication Workers of America v. Beck. The question this time was whether an employee who is not a formal member in the sense above, but rather a financial core member, can be required to pay full union dues and fees, if those fees are used for purposes beyond collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment (so-called collective bargaining activities). The court ruled in a 5 to 3 decision, with Justice William Brennan writing for the majority, that the financial core obligation does not include “the obligation to support union activities beyond those germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.”

  Most significantly, this financial core definition of the minimum union dues required to get and/or keep employment under a compulsory union contract allows objecting union members to withhold that portion of their compulsory union dues that the union spends on any political activities, campaigns or causes. By resigning full constitutional membership in their labor union and declaring themselves financial core workers citing the Beck ruling, financial core members are termed dues-paying-non-members. They keep their union jobs and all union benefits. However, since they are no longer constitutional members of the labor union, they are free from any union internal rules and regulations governing full constitutional members. They can not hold union elected office nor can they even vote on the union contract they support financially.”

  So SAG members, you can WITHOLD your DUES without losing work! Make yourselves felt and heard!

  Comment by helenofpeel — Thursday March 12, 2009 @ 11:35pm PDT  Reply to this post

• First to helenofpeel, If you are going to do research try understanding it first. The only dues a Fi-Core can withold concerns any part of the dues that the union uses for political causes. SAG doesn’t spend any money on political causes. So there is little to no money to be saved by going Core.

  >a financial core member, can be required to pay full union dues and fees, if those fees are used for purposes beyond collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment (so-called collective bargaining activities).With respect to theatrical and television motion pictures, the Producer has agreed to a separate payment for this use on the Internet because Internet exhibition is at this time outside the primary market. The Producer reserves the right in future negotiations to contend that the pattern of release has changed so that this use constitutes or is a part of the primary market of distribution of theatrical or television motion pictures, and that, therefore, no additional payment pursuant hereto should be made with respect to the exhibition of theatrical or television motion pictures (including those covered by this Agreement) on the Internet. The Guild reserves the right in future negotiations to contend to the contrary, and further to assert that regardless of whether other exhibitions are or have become part of the primary market, payment provisions for performers employed on motion pictures so exhibited should be improved.<

  Now that USAN is in charge again they have agreed to a whooping $22.50 for 26 weeks of unlimited use on the internet after 17 days of free use.

  Comment by Yosemite — Friday March 13, 2009 @ 2:05am PDT  Reply to this post

• I know I am one of many who may lose their job due to the horrible economy and the ongoing strike but I must say this whole ordeal will make all of us lose in the end. I am so glad that I am Canadian because I can go back to a sane place once the corrupt and broken have completely wiped out this country. Does anyone see the irony right now. The entertainment industry is made up of adults and children. Right now we have allowed the children to run the show; a bad and costly decision that will ruin most of us who have no choice but to stay in America.

  Comment by James Boomtown — Friday March 13, 2009 @ 2:41am PDT  Reply to this post