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SAG TV/Theatrical Referendum Ballot Schedule
Tuesday, May 19
Ballots mailed.
Tuesday, June 9, 5:00 PM PT
Deadline for receipt of voted ballot.
SAG Ballot Schedule
Marketplace
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News/Opinion Poll
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- Box Office Forecast: Race for #1 at the Box Office This Weekend
- The Vow (THVOW) forecast at $36.7M up $2.1M
- Safe House (SAFEH) forecast at $34.0M up $3.2M
- Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace 3D (SW13D) forecast at $23.0M down $3.1M
- Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (MYSTR) forecast at $20.9M up $2.9M
Two Questions:
1. Will there be a see-through envelope?
2. Who will be doing the counting?
VOTE NO!
PERIOD!
aftra has now barred SAG members from working their shows unless SAG members join aftra. based on all the facts it seems aftra is nothing more than a scab union squeezing SAG members when they are down!
i say vote NO!
What the…? How ’bout tomorrow? Is tomorrow too soon? Because when it doesn’t pass, June 15th is pretty late in the game to find this out. In fact, June 15th will be about a year since we started saying “NO” to this same crappy offer.
So what’s the reasoning (scam)? Are they hoping that delaying this vote will give the Saylor PR spin campaign some time to have an effect?
Still, the SAV ballot should go out in the same damn envelope. Think of the time and money we’d save.
Why the rush?
i love how slow the process is going. it’s wonderful. gives me lots of time to collect unemployment.
but i think counting the ballots shouldn’t take place until Christmas.
Good God all mighty. Could they possibly drag this out any longer? How F&#*ing long does it take to check a box and lick a damn stamp. I mean really, by the time they mail the damn things out they’ll have been sitting with their thumbs in their butts for over a month. A pandemic will have broken out and the swine flu cured in less time than these tossers can vote to eat a bowl of gruel.
Don’t get me wrong SAG we all love ya, but you F’d this up so long ago, and it’s been so obvious to the rest of us where this was headed for so long that we’re damn sick and tired of waiting. You fucks would lose a race with a glacier!
If you’re making your living acting (for real) and you want to avoid turning your career into a hobby. VOTE NO!
Just curious…..why does it take 3 weeks to mail the ballots?
Good question Charlie..
Maybe it’s because you don’t get residuals for licking stamps…
It is taking a month after the board voted to send out the contract to members because there are going to be pro and con statements. When this happens the ballot gets delayed for weeks while these are written and vetted. Even though the national board voted to send this to members… those who oppose it are delaying it another few weeks.
As someone who needs to work and has their health insurance through SAG, and watched 60+ pilots go to Aftra, even though they costs more to choose them than SAG, they had a contract…
SO I will be voting YES! I want a raise, I want a contract, I want to get back to work with films being cast with labor stability. I make my living completely through acting. So I will be voting YES on this contract! As will every other actor friend I speak to that makes their living as actors. This has gone on long enough.
Vote Yes!
Finally!!
Gonna pass by 60+ percent.
Vote Yes!
It’s been a difficult work-less year or so for me… My SAG dues were dues arrears, so last week I paid up to make sure I could vote against this unprecedented disaster of a deal.
Called yesterday to learn that “paid as of March 31″ was the cut off! Even though the bloody ballots won’t mail for another three weeks!
As a former board member during the 1980′s, this current clown show at SAG is simply heartbreaking. This is worse than the Reagan/SAG residual giveaways in 1960. That devastated so many, but at least it was a sacrifice for the future. This debacle spits on the hard-won gains of past — and undermines any share of the future.
The Vote Yes trolls from the AMPTP are out in force again…
Are crayons included?
sagmember: This has gone on long enough. Vote Yes!
###########
That’s all you can say in favor of the contract?
Let’s see if the PR firm can do better.
Although PR spin or not, the educated actor will vote NO.
Hmmm. I called SAG dues dept to ask about this “cut-off date” for voting (I only owe the past period and this current period that we were just billed for), and after listening to muzak for two minutes, the automated voice came on and told me very pleasantly that “Thank you for waiting. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. Your estimated wait time is … four hours and thirty-four minutes.” Hmmm.
I watch myself and friends on hulu, and don’t get paid. People tell me on my website that they see my work on the internet, and I don’t get paid. My fancy agent tells me that “everything’s going to come out in the wash, don’t worry”, but he keeps trying to send me out for jobs where I don’t get paid anywhere near what I’m supposed to get paid. “We’ll work the rest out later”, he says. I’m up for a supporting in a network pilot that (as of right now) is a go, and I have no solid contract. When I called SAG to ask about this, I was told that “right now there is no norm, everything is changing, trust your agent and your instincts.”
My instincts tell me that one shouldn’t be an indian giver, like SAG is currently being by depriving most of the membership of the right to vote. I think the contract, to put it bluntly, sucks. I also think the only way to stop this contract from being approved is for all the top-billing stars to call a work stoppage, which I do not think is going to happen. Whether hobby, livelihood, or destiny, the actor has been deregulated into a day-laborer.
I vote for two new unions – one for the $ proven stars, and one for everybody else. I for one, am entirely comfortable with being judged according to my financial marketability per annum. If my work makes more than I cost, then I’ll be in the star union for a year. If my work costs more than I make, then I’ll be in the everybody else union for a year.
My instincts (and other things) tell me that SAG and AFTRA are not doing their jobs. As a long standing member of both, I currently feel protected by neither. As far as California industry goes, it seems that right now medical marijuana has better regulation than entertainment. Perhaps I should hold off on dues paying and invest in a farm.
VOTE YES! VOTE NO! It doesn’t matter! The business has moved on and we’ve been locked out. The middle class actor is done with. MF, UFS… what leverage did either camp wield? Whether you support the guys in the pocket of the producers or the ones standing tall against them, the upshot is that the locks have been changed and we’re in the cold. First MF unaccountably sat on the SAV. Then the new guys came in, exchanged a few Masonic handshakes and did exactly what we thought they would do, exactly how and when we thought they would do it. And what does it matter? The tide had turned and things were moving inexorably towards a tomorrow that would never resemble yesterday and a strike was not going to change that. When the prevailing attitude is that anyone can do these jobs, and when the public is more interested in the “Real Housewives of Wherever”, it becomes difficult to demand a piece of the pie for the people who no one regards as important to the process.
However if anyone out there has the ability to create content, then maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a way to keep a toe in. And possibly make some real money. Take a shot. It’s amateur hour all over the place anyway, why shouldn’t you have a chance? Make your own opportunity. You’re as likely to have success doing that that as you would treading water and hoping things could be the way they used to be, so why not?
vote yes!
Carter, you are so right.
I went to get my haircut yesterday and the first thing my stylist said, who is not in the industry at all, is what couple I am rooting for on Dancing with the stars.
Network scripted tv is dying. No way around it and it is not coming back. It has changed and the theory that
somehow a strike or other will change it is mute. This
is the end game. No one cares, and “actors” are so expendable at this point in time I feel like we are lucky to even have a shot at anything anymore.
Am I the only one that finds it ironic that all the people that havent been paying their dues are now bitching about how they wont get a chance to vote? Are
you kidding me.
Man, it is just embarassing.
what is the delay in sending out ballots? Get us back to work!!!!!!!!!
“Carter”, you and “David” are missing the point (or you’re a couple of lying shills, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt).
Voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ absolutely matters – in fact, voting is the ONLY thing that matters.
Whether anyone agrees with U4S or MF (or, like me, sees themselves as ‘independent’) isn’t the issue. WE HAVEN’T BEEN ALLOWED TO VOTE ON ANYTHING! Nobody has any idea how strong or weak SAG is because the only (supposed) barometer of that strength or weakness has been ‘word on the street’, or “someone I talked to today…”, or “vote ‘yes’ because all the actors are doin’ it”. Nobody has any freakin’ idea how we actors will vote UNTIL WE VOTE. So far, it’s only been spin from the AMPTP, the AMPTP-owned media, sister unions and our not-so-elected National Majority Board.
If either of you thinks “we’re in the cold”, or “actors are so expendable at this point”, well you’re welcome to your opinions. But if you believe those things, and don’t like those things then educate yourselves and vote your conscience on the contract. You, all of us can (still and always) get what we want. But it’s not gonna be handed to us – we have to fight for it.
That’s what unions do. We vote. SAG is a democracy, not an aristocracy. Learn and vote.
In solidarity,
There are two reasons why it’s taking so long. The first is that they are waiting as long as humanly possible until television becomes digital so that television will now fall under “New Media”. That’s right folks. Your cable company will no longer broadcast television as in years before. They will now receive their programming via CBS.com, NBC.com, CW.com, ABC.com, Fox.com. In other words: NEW MEDIA. Television actors will be considered to be working under a NEW MEDIA contract. In other words, none of the extras will have to be union. In other words, unlimited usage for roughly $25. In other words, no more residuals. They’ve wanted to push this crap-ass contract onto unsuspecting actors and extras and stunt persons with the least amount of information doled out about it except that they want you to foolishly vote for it. And as noted above, some assholes above are all set to do just so.
Look, we have the option of just voting “no” which will mean that we can continue working under the current contract until something better comes along. That may take until the 2011 negotiations, but that’s a fuck of a lot better than watching all our benefits and rights pissed away for good.
But if we cannot get the dumb-assed members of SAG to read and actually become fully aware of what’s going on out there, it’s safe to say that it’s time to pack it up and find a new job. Because at this rate, they just aren’t enough SAG members speaking up about it all. Sure, if it passes, you will here celebrities by the THOUSANDS bitching and complaining about it all. And that’s because hindsight is 20/20.
So do us all a favor – to anyone who reads this. Pass the word along to as many EXTRAS as possible that voting “yes” on this contract could mean that every show may now REPLACE all of them with NON-UNION extras. The stunt persons are already doing everything they can to tell each other to vote it down. But now we need a LARGER and more POWERFUL group to come forward in numbers, and believe it or not folks, that is the EXTRAS. And don’t anyone dare undermine them … they are an important faction to this guild. They are also tomorrow’s day players and stars. They are writers. They are directors. They are retirees. And they will ALL be affected if producers use this contract if it’s voted in. It will mean LESS money contributed to Pension & Health, thus less money to give to those who qualify (remind you of Social Security’s dwindling resources?). It will mean your earnings must increase considerably (just as AFTRA’s just did) to qualify for Plan I or II healthcare. It will mean an increase in Non-union background. It will mean actors (and background) will no longer be able to file claims with SAG but will have to hire their OWN ATTORNEY at their OWN EXPENSE. It will mean mileage compensation will still be a shitty $.30 per mile. It will mean an eventual collapse of Sag Pension which will mean all you vested extras and stand-in’s won’t receive a penny when you retire, even though you thought that you would.
Case in point, voting yes will mean the demise of the Screen Actors Guild.
We’re counting on ALL of you, especially you extras, whom I still and will always consider to be a VERY important part of SAG, to help us tell producers:
WE DESERVE BETTER. BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.
Vote NO!!
First and foremost, Vote NO.
Secondly, for any literature that you should receive in the mail from the crisis management public relations firm, Saylor Public Relations, out of Pasadena, California, or any literature sent via the Screen Actors Guild endorsing a “yes” vote on the contract, simply scribble out your name and address and write clearly on the literature:
RETURN TO SENDER
and stick it back in the mailbox.
It works. It’s been done many many times before.
VOTE YES!!!!!!!