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What an ignoble end to a once great union. It’s been two years since the Screen Actors Guild changed leaders. 
So membership should look to them for the current sad state of earnings, as shown by the just-released contract report comparing 2010 revenue to previous years. It’s no surprise to the small-screen community that SAG’s TV earnings plunged -8.2% overall in 2010 compared to 2009 since the current SAG leadership did nothing the past two years to stop the TV studios and networks from using any excuse to transition from SAG to AFTRA on pilots and new shows. (Incredibly SAG leaders never uttered a peep to membership when AFTRA in 2010 dominated the broadcast development season by seizing about 90% of the pilots.) It’s also shocking that Interactive earnings dove -31% total, demonstrating that SAG has been woefully inadequate in this expanding biz. Also disastrous was the -21% loss of revenue for background actors in both the theatrical and TV sectors. Overall theatrical for actors went up +5.7% (attributable mainly to recovery from the writers strike) and overall commercial rose +12.7% (attributable to bigger paydays negotiated because of the 2000 commercial strike). With an election coming up, SAG membership would do well to question current SAG leaders and ask if they allowed this to happen in order to ensure a merger with AFTRA. Here’s the chart:
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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The upcoming merger of SAG and AFTRA will make these type of stories completely moot and irrelevant. Performers will see ALL of their work: Acting, Voiceover, Ineractive, Commercial, Industrials, Singing, Dancing, Background, Performance Capture, ALL OF IT done in one union.
For less money.
YOU CAN TAKE THE ALLEN ROSENBERG LEADERSHIP AND ANN MARIE WHATS HER NAME GROUP AND SHOVE EM…….they were an elitist nasty little bunch….and were nothing but self serving. The leadership now is about merging- AND HELL IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED YEARS AGO….then we would’t be bent over the table and taking it! I have been a member forever AND DUE TO THE TWO UNION SHIT HAVE LOST HEALTH CARE AFTER 29 YEARS….along with a host of others…i know casting folks and actor folks who have all lost houses and all their savings….
SO GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND or another place the sun won’t shine and vote for their almost too late merger.
OK, I’ll get off the soapbox now the the Rosenbergers can get their 25 cents in….
Blame AFTRA’s poaching and raiding. AFTRA is a corrupt organization. They are not a union. What actor ever wanted AFTRA to represent them? NONE. In 2004 AFTRA’s NED told AFTRA’s mostly “non Hollywood actor” Board, that freelance actors were a giant pool of money, that AFTRA should go after. Its on the record.
The first thing that AFTRA did was go after basic cable contracts. They did this by encouraging producers to use digital cameras. Then they undercut SAG contracts.
After that bit of dirty business, AFTRA went after prime time broadcast, by bugging out of Phase One joint negotiations and giving away the store, in exchange for jurisdiction.
The producers then rewarded AFTRA by giving them the last three seasons. Why didn’t SAG do anything? Why didn’t they make a “peep”? In the past, whenever AFTRA tried any shit, SAG spanked them HARD.
The current SAG leadership, under UFS, betrayed the SAG membership.
Because the current dumbass SAG leadership, which is being run by Richard Masur’s factotem Amy Aquino (Clueless Ken is just a figurehead) believes that merging with a corrupt union will be a good thing. They also want to permentely move power away from Hollywood to NYC.
AFTRA is a parasite. The answer is simple. Either decertify AFTRA, which would finally and permanetly drive a stake through the vampire and kill it for good or take the longer approach and vote Unite for Strength out of power at S.A.G.
Merging with AFTRA will be the death knell of an actors union. I’ll go Ficore if they merge.
agrred….how aftra became the good guy in all this is beyond me…..
Yeah, I don’t see the evidence for your argument, either. SAG will be joining forces with a union that has consistently undercut SAG’s pay grades, and sold itself out in bargaining prior to SAG’s turn at the table. Suddenly, merging with those folk is going to rescue SAG? Hard to follow the logic there.
That’s good because we’ll need to work several professions to make up for the drop in income.
As is the case of the people with the most money ($$$=power), union leadership (AKA people with the most power), have not flexed a muscle to fight the AFTRA take-over of pilots and series. The “union” leadership shows exactly no unification whatsoever. It’s the “if you don’t have any power, leave us alone to do what we want” mentality.
SAG had the right and privilege to sue AFTRA for taking pilots from day 1, which, concurrently started with that “union” undercutting SAG’s collective bargaining agreement negotiations. Additionally, SAG published unsigned “letters” to their membership to ratify the crappy CBA now in place. We had video on the web telling us, from actor/producer people to vote the crappy CBA through. How is it the “producers” whom are signatories as such with SAG don’t have to disclose the FACT that they themselves work both sides of the money machine?
Once the “cease and desist” case against AFTRA is ever filed, only then can members of SAG believe that a unification with the 100 or so DJs, the few hundred weather forcasters, the thousand sports broadcasters and the balance of the dying soaps’ actors should be invited to vote on something called “residuals” and another thing called “acting talent.”
Meh.
Unions are soooo yesterday. Americans are still mad that their greed and extortion forced corporations overseas.
What a complete load of crap. The only greed responsible for pushing jobs overseas is that of the corporations themselves. Unions of all stripes are responsible for the creation of this country’s middle class. Those responsible for helping to destroy that middle class are the yahoos in Washington and the greedy corporations.
Wrong. Perhaps the group of americans you hang with think this way but it’s always been the greedy, extortionist CEOs who want to line their already deep pockets even deeper that send jobs overseas.
And this is good because….?????? SAG is a joke with the current leadership!!
SAG/AFTRA together…the combined “unions” will still have no teeth. The fact is, SAG doesn’t possess the power and respect it once did from the studios. My wife is DGA, a completely differently run (and respected)union. If only SAG/AFTRA had the courage…..
When I was working with Granada TV in Manchester England..Oh, so many years ago..there was only one union for everything ..Stage, Screen, TV…it was called Actors Equity and was a closed shop..you had to be a member..they spied on you…and it was to the left of Socialism..Comrade..comrade..comrade.
When you bring people from Aftra into the union..it denigrates all we have worked so hard for…professionalism..these people are picked up off the streets..because they are cute..the next thing to (shudder) reality TV…
If we joined with Equity I might be interested..but those people are farting so far above their assholes they wouldn’t be (Ho-Hum) interested in scruffy Film actors. Who have more (boring) fun..
I have spent most of my life on stage or in film..and have worked hard to get to this barelymakingit
place where I am now…but, as for TV ..I have done a few commercials (Yawn)
“Allowed it happen”???? How about it was a done deal under the previous leaders that went 8 months without a deal so the AMPTP took their fury out on SAG and transferred all of the TV pilots that year and the next to AFTRA. The then leaders at SAG were warned this could happen and their President said, “Let them work AFTRA” so they wanted exactly what they wanted, over a compromise that would have kept the TV work more evenly split.
The one thing we can thank them for is sinking the last attempt at merger which would have avoided all of this. Actors would be under one umbrella and all of us struggling to maintain insurance in two unions would have avoided YEARS of struggle.
Here we go again with the selective memory. Hindsight’s a great thing, no? But only when you look at ALL of the facts…
AFTRA straight-up STOLE TV from SAG – unfairly, underhandedly and with malice aforethought. Primetime wasn’t in their jurisdiction. SAG had carried AFTRA for decades at the bargaining table. Then this became your “done deal” when NY AFTRA (posing as SAG leadership) cut off Doug Allen’s balls and proceeded to overreach their authority by instituting a never before used loophole in the SAG constitution, and then planting their cronies in leadership positions telling the SAG membership “sign the contract and go back to work immediately”. Misplaced trust and fear not only voted those “leaders” into office, but enabled the bloodletting of SAG’s core values. Post writer’s strike, it was the perfect storm for AFTRA to stab its own sister in the heart. (Which AFTRA had no problem with.)
I know we’ve had our disagreements in the past sagmember but even though the merger is pretty much a done deal, that doesn’t mean that you can misplace blame for what you call “sinking a last attempt at a merger” three years ago. The Screen Actor’s Guild was worth fighting for back then and our elected leadership was doing just that. Current leadership has made SAG AFTRA’s bitch – on purpose.
SAG members aren’t reading this news and weeping, Nikki. We’ve been weeping about the lack of SAG leadership for three years.
Dear Ace and all who think AFTRA is the villian here. There is no villian. AFTRA was in the lucky position of having high-def video in their back pockets. SAG was like the auto industry. “We’re the best, we make the most money, they have to use us.” They didn’t because then SAG leadership, EVEN AFTER THE FAILED WRITER’S STRIKE, thought htye had the power. All the pilots went to AFTRA.
SAG needed to coddle AFTRA a little more during that negotiation, throw it a couple of bones and instead acted like the big and powerful OZ. Technology is a tricky thing and SAG wasn’t paying attention.
Philly Boy is the only guy here who seems to see the truth. Merge these two great unions and form a greater one. Get off this fighting and join the party and tie up actors and broadcasters and singers and dancers and background and get us all under the same roof and there will be no more jurisdictional disputes. Surely you can see that, can’t you?!
Two great unions? No TV/film actor, none, honestly thinks AFTRA is, or ever was a “great union”. Further, no “greater” union will be created as long as AFTRA (and current SAG) leadership are running things. Both groups are AMPTP sympathizers and will not allow a hint of a strike authorization before going into negotiations. Meaning that the AMPTP will shit all over actors again, and the “negotiators” will allow it – again.
Nothing good will come of this until membership wises up and realizes what’s really happening (and has really happened in the past).
“If we don’t learn from the past, we are destined to repeat it.”
This is a disgusting report and reflects the lack of leadership in SAG and the selfish agenda in AFTRA, which stole all the pilots, the result of which was hurting thousands of actors who are not going to make their medical insurance in SAG this year because the work has gone AFTRA and AFTRA has always been a lame union. Now SAG has been crippled by this merger mania and everyone is scared to strike so we now have NO POWER. Even many of the members don’t seem to care anymore. They vote in these spineless so-called leaders who, as you point out, don’t speak up when the rug is being pulled out from under them. Sad. Very sad.
The merger will change nothing unless union/guild leadership purges itself of incompetent negotiators, network and studio sympathizers, and individuals who have real conflicts of interest. The merged union/guild membership must insist that their leadership be properly vetted with background and other investigative checks prior to assuming office.
It’s obvious that the current leadership doesn’t care about SAG… they’re just keeping the seats warm until the merger they’re devoting all their time and energy to materializes. Membership First cared about SAG and its members… but didn’t have the guts to go all the way to secure SAG’s jurisdiction while they had the chance.
There SHOULD be one union for actors, The Screen Actors Guild… but there will soon only be AFTRA, no matter what they call it – with a corporate culture that’s more interested in giving opportunities to the guy who wants to book one line on CSI Miami so he can tell Mom back in Toledo he’s still an actor, than career actors who’ve devoted their lives and have traditionally made the bulk of their living in this business.
Agree with this absolutely. I think it all started when Ed Asner decided to be FDR and arrange health care for all those who want to be actors, who acted once or twice, or are background performers.The idea of a guild went out the window. The idea of maintaining a union to establish a working actor career went out the window. The guild went from 40,000 members to 120,000 as if it were something that needed to get larger, like a Teamster branch. Stupid. Stupid.
Aftra, to me, repped radio announcers and broadcasters and some taped shows. Their concerns were not mine and not those of a working actor. The idea that it neded to be larger and more inclusive made it more like an extras union. Terrible loss.
Your eloquence is unfortuantely overshadowed by your ignorance, to wit: “some taped shows” actually employ hundreds of working actors. Actors with careers and resumes far more substantial, I’m assuming, than your own…?
@ Former SAG Board Member & Also a SAG – unfortunately your condescension and superior attitudes towards those you feel are less than you have contributed to the demise of SAG. If, because of your “extraordinary gift,” you never had to ‘book one line on CSI Miami so you can tell Mom back in Toledo you’re still an actor’ – then consider yourself lucky. If you’re so successful though, I can only wonder why you would feel such hostility towards a fellow actor, who for all you know may actually be a talented performer and has been trudging and trying for years just to book that role. And goodness gracious, how demeaning and degrading that a lowly background ACTOR should be entitled to health insurance that s/he has worked for. Though I suppose that when YOU book only one or two jobs a year, you still feel qualified to consider yourself an actor. But the best thing of all is that there were those who knew how easy it would be to deflect your attention from the real issues by throwing the class-baiting bone. You couldn’t wait to chomp down on that and you chose to fight to further divide the classes. Meanwhile, money-grubbing producers were very busy annihilating anything reminscent of what SAG allegedly stood for and holding SAG hostage. Of course, the fear-bone was constantly tossed around – there would be no jobs, the industry would forever shut down! – if we all didn’t acquiesce to the ridiculous demands. And instead of thinking for one’s self, too many simply chose to be afraid and “blindly” followed – even though it was all out there in the open. Giving in has lead to a “plethora” of work for EVERYONE, hasn’t it. Pat yourselves on the back. And by the way, oh-so-superior-ones, the truth is that there are way too many actors getting the big ole paychecks who can’t act. So let’s stop pretending that in the entertainment industry, talent determines who books the lead in the big screen blockbuster, who gets a line on a t.v. show and who is making crosses in the background.
Well, Interactive or Internet… Some board members say that it is still “too soon” to negotiate more lucrative terms. Hence the loss, we need real leadership with people who will grow a pair and know how to negotiate a fair compensation for the membership. There’s also a dude who once expressed that production made in the 70s wasn’t qualified for actors involved in them to receive residuals for their work. That’s the type of thinking of some of our negotiators. God, help us! I hope SAG and AFTRA merge, but the ridiculous minimums negotiated by AFTRA are a no. Our representatives should stop sabotaging the future of the membership. Those who don’t like to receive a handsome compensation for their work, should leave the Union and stop sabotaging the future for the rest of the membership.
dear st nikki
you are the best
you look out for the working woman and man
you see how above the line is not fair to below the line
you are fair and just and i am your biggest supporter
love
billy
How can you be so stupid and incompetent to blame the current leadership??? It started with Melissa Gilbert when she turned a blind eye to AFTRA taking over all the cable shows so that they could fatten their pension and health coffers to make another attempt to get a merger through and the final destruction of SAG was finalized when the worst SAG President in it’s inglorious history, Alan Rosenberg, thought insulting studio heads and making outrageous demands was the key to having them capitulate, when all it did was drive them into the arms of AFTRA, quietly waiting on the sidelines to take away every TV show at every studio with their lower wages, absence of residuals, and complete indifference to actors at all.
Now that the studios recognize all the money they are saving by using AFTRA and avoiding SAG, why would they go back? Contrary to your incompetent appraisal of executive intelligence, they aren’t that stupid. You were an accomplice in the Rosenberg fiasco with your rah-rah rhetoric from the cheap seats and now you wonder what went wrong. You’re even dumber than he is.
Name one thing that the current leadership could have done to keep work from going to AFTRA.
Begged?
Or, unilaterally re-write the contracts to make them more attractive to producers, but less lucrative to the talent?
The die was cast before they got in.
MF fired the gun when they let the contracts stagnate. And we are trying to outrun the bullet until merger.
Well, Todd, one thing the current leadership could and should but refuses to do is file a unit clarification claim, against AFTRA, with the DOA and NLRB. It takes the board to do that. Not individuals. THE BOARD.
It can be done. It was done back in 2002 regarding FOX. The current leadership DOES NOT WANT TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. They want this merger to happen. They want a weak actors union to ensure there will never be another actors strike. They are weak. They are AFTRA centric. They are dishonest. They are pawns for AFTRA.
S.A.G. = Stupid Actors Guild – What an unfunny joke!
Well, FINALLY. This should be the lead story in every entertainment industry rag. Leave it to Nikki Finke and her bravery and intelligence to shine a light on things.
As you see, SAG’s commercial earnings are fantastic. And you want to know why? Because back in 2000, SAG, under the leadership of Bill Daniels and Performers Alliance, said “hell no” to class A residual rollbacks. We struck for 6 months to hold onto what has proven to be the saving grace for many SAG actors who are fortunate enough to do SAG network commercials. And under the same administration, we were able to secure the Internet and have our employer agree that it is union jurisdiction, securing it as part of our buy-out/residual pool for the first time in history. Because of those two major achievements, SAG has held strong in the commercial contract area. Every commercial contract since the 2000 commercial strike has held onto those two major provisions because SAG, at the time, had the strength and determined leadership and membership to hold firm for 6 months, ultimately coming out a head. Now, of course you’ll see board members, especially from New York, who were there at the time, try to re-write history; claiming that the 2000 strike was a disaster, blaming the whole thing on Performers Alliance. But the truth is, every negotiating move was made with unanimous support from not only the New York members of the negotiating committee, but also AFTRA. But SAG took the lead in that battle. AFTRA had no choice. Also, AfTRA had little to no dog in that hunt. They did very few, if any, on air commercials. SAG covered almost 100% of on-air network commercials in that contract.
Because the current SAG leadership has been completely MIA when it comes to standing firm and holding strong, SAG has taken a huge hit in the tv area. Some want to believe that it’s MemberhipFirst’s fault for wanting to hang strong in 2008, fighting for better residuals in new media and home video and other areas. Some think the AMPTP punished SAG for having the nerve to not play ball, holding out for months, until Ned Vaughn orchestrated the firing of Doug Allan. The truth is, AFTRA folded, went into negotiations without SAG, offered producer friendly proposals to our employers, and asked their broadcasters (who don’t work that contract) to vote it up in order to get it past. Of course the AMPTP would give AFTRA all of the work. That’s their job: to save money and weaken unions whenever they can. But it was AFTRA who made that possible. They provided the AMPTP everything they asked for with regard to the contract. EVERYTHING!!! Had AFTRA stood strong with SAG, we would not be in the position we’re in today. Don’t blame the AMPTP. They are our partners. They aren’t obligated to adhere to Phase I. But AFTRA is. And they f*&*^# SAG. And they had/have a plan. And UFS is part of that plan. The plan: weaken SAG to such a point that merger is a necessity, not a choice. Well, these new figures prove that point. Why hasn’t the SAG leadership done a thing to prevent this? Because David White, Kim Hedgepeth, Roberta Reardon, Ken Howard, Ned Vaughn, Amy Aquino, Mike Hodge, and others, will do whatever it takes to make sure a AFTRA driven merger takes place. Making sure that there will never be another actors strike.
Thank you Deadline and Nikki. Keep it up. Keep shining a bright light on this travesty. Maybe with your help, those who are asleep will wake up. Those who are afraid will become brave.
On another note: A friend of mine told me to take a look at NY’s Mike Hodges Screen Actor Magazine. So I did. Hodge states in his letter, “…I am reminded of an incident during the C&A campaign, AFTRA’s president Roberta Reardon and I were on a job together…” Well, it must have been a plumbing job or dog walking job because that woman has absolutely not IMDB credits. Please, let’s find out what job that was. Maybe she actually has done some professional acting jobs. Where or where are her credits??!!
YOU ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU NEED — AND WANT — FROM A NIKKE FINKE STORY. AND THE BELLETINS GIVE ME THE FEELING I’M STILL WRITING INFORMATION NEWS AS THEY COME (OFTEN) MINUTES AFTER THEY HAPPEN. IT’S A GREAT GAME YOU ARE RUNNING. FOR INSTANCE NOBODY EVER PAID ATTENTION TO THE WORKINGS OF SAG BEFORE — AND LOOK WHAT’S LIEAKING OUT 00 OR BEING PRIED OUT.
PHB
The most important aspect of the studios re-assigning their shows as Aftra and not Sag is NEVER discussed. And it’s this….though feel free to correct me if you know more than me…but listen up!
If a TV show was shot on film, the actors worked under a Sag Contract. But if a show was shot on TAPE…as in VIDEOTAPE…then it was an Aftra contract.
Then when Digital TAPE was invented, someone at some studio – I’m guessing – got the nasty idea to say…”Hey, since we’re shooting on TAPE and not actually FILM, why don’t you try and see if we can change the show to AFTRA, so we can play the actors less.” And so for years and years NO ONE at SAG bothered to fight this ridiculous claim that digital tape was more akin to Video tape, rather than Film stock. And so every TV show that wanted to shoot under AFTRA, go to because they were using Digital film…oh sorry, digital tape.
Because SAG never went to court to say” This whole digital TAPE thing is ticky tack”…then the studios jumped on the bandwagon and changed their shows to Aftra all because they were shooting on TAPE…nevermind that this digital tape is more akin to FILM and not Video tape.
So now you know. I told people at SAG years ago….years ago…and nothing happened. And of course everyone knows Aftra did nothing to stop the flow of shows under their “realm”. But the truth is that all those CSI shows, etc…are basically shooting on film. But so long as they keep calling it “Tape”…then it can be an aftra show. Freaking absurd!
Been weeping. Gonna weep some more when the COBRA runs out in a few months. Maybe the Actors Fund will help then so I can keep my medication going and not drop dead. I’m a vested actor with a pension, this year was the first time in 20 years I didn’t make SAG insurance. And many of my colleagues are in the same boat. Non-vested actors are less expensive to hire and reality show performers are the producer’s friend. A union actor is an albatross. Buyouts, lower pay, even when you do work, just doesn’t add up. Don’t even get me started on internet wages, a dirty joke.
A while back, when half-pint was up for the presidency (and we know how that went), a labor lawyer and experienced negotiator/SAG member was up for election too. Too bad he didn’t have a squeaky clean show in the 70s and a buck tooth smile. Oh! Why do actors have to be so dumb? Everyone hates a tough lawyer, unless he’s your lawyer.
And another thing, shut up to Clooney, Hanks, etc. you had no business telling actors to get back to work … as if rank and file are your compadres. You really think producers should be voting in acting unions? Once you pass the level of actor & get a first-look deal with ANY major, you forfeit your right to vote as an actor. Need to put that caveat in the new union contract.
Curious. What are we gonna call ourselves?
BFFs (Been fooled f@ck$rs)
Good luck. It sounds like your union has abandoned you. I’m curious to see how this plays out and what the blowback the union leadership might face, given how it seems like they have failed on several levels.
This is all too little too late.
It tinges every conversation (among actors/bg/standins) on every set.
There will never be any excuse for what is occurring. What happened In Congress two weeks ago happened at SAG two years ago. In-fighting and pouting until some little cretin gets his way.
The price these people will pay (in Sag as well as Congress) for screwing over their own is going to be far worse than anything they can imagine.
Aftra president, Roberta Reardon is a VP on the NLRB board. She is the reason the NLRB will not step up and intervene. The 1952 NLRB ruling stating “all current and future forms of filming are SAG jurisdiction” is being violated. We are just the sad unemployeed pawns of this farce.
SAG president Ken Howard has been very busy…working on Aftra productions; when he’s not pushing the merger agenda!
A union by any other name will not be the same. SAG will be lost forever if this merger is allowed. Only the members can stop it!
We are already suffering, voting down the merger won’t change that but will voting for it?
Roberta Reardon is not on the NLRB Board. She’s on the AFL-CIO Board.
SAG can file a “Article 20″ claim with the AFL-CIO alleging that AFTRA raided SAG’s television jurisdiction, while SAG was trying to get a deal with its employers.
AFTRA is totally guilty. Its raid was one of the dirtiest acts, of a dirty corrupt union, in the history of labor unions. AFTRA should die for that.
No actor, I’ve ever met, has ever wanted AFTRA instead of SAG. Actor DO have a choice. Producers do not determine actor’s bargaining agents. Don’t SAG’s incompetent leaders know this?!?
What would the AFL-CIO do? Nothing. The AFL is trying to force a merger. All unions that merge decline in strength. The dummies at the AFL haven’t gotten that memo.
The NLRB could resolve jurisdiction in under a month, under the new NLRB proposed policy changes.
The merger plan is really about screwing Hollywood. It is coming out of New York and the Regional Branches of SAG. It has Richard Masur’s dirty fingerprints all over it.
I’ve been AFTRA since 1974 & SAG since 1976. Why the snarky comments about Background Performers in this discussion? I make my living doing Stand-In & Extra work and used to get Health Benefits yearly through SAG. Now I earn them through AFTRA. Step one let them merge (please!). Step 2 let the new Union roll over for whatever the Producers want just like what always happens. Once SAG let the New Media Rates fall to Non-Union status it was kinda over. You work 8 hours for $64 & get back to me. I’d like to see any of you last a month fighting to get Extra bookings. And you’d find we work hard too folks & would also like a living wage. And scene…
John, BG will always get dissed – by virtually everyone in the biz, including “actors” – it’s just the way it is. More unfortunately, that disrespect is sometimes warranted. Like you, I do BG work almost constantly. It’s a decent-paying union job which generates benefits (or used to, but I digress). But our group is also littered with bitter, rude, unprofessional and classless people on occasion. Brings a shadow of scorn from other union/guild professionals who always do their best. We should too.
What people fail to realize is that BG, as a group, represents the largest voting block within SAG (perhaps AFTRA as well). Motivating this group to learn union truths, and vote accordingly, has proven difficult at times, as with most SAG members.
How ’bout it, fellow background corps workers? Feel like standing our ground and making a difference this time around, or would you rather sit on your hands and get screwed again by guild negotiators who repeatedly throw us under the bus as a bargaining chip?
The AMPTP pocketed both SAG and AFTRA a long time ago…
Once again, the collective inability to truly asses the past leaves me shaking my head. Sow what you reap, I say to the crazy boneheads that insist on dividing our work between two unions, and look for any excuse to lay all blame at the feet of the current leadership. Film vs. Tape, live manner vs. studio, unit clarification(has already failed, give it up, morons), yadayadayada. Fighting between SAG and AFTRA is a war between ourselves, how can so many of you be so dense as to not see that? If you stand in front of a camera or a microphone to tell a story, you are performing for someone, and let’s not even get started on live performance — for you history idiots, SAG was started by a bunch of Equity performers — If a merger had happened years ago, say back in the fifties, instead of consuming so much of our time for the past 70 or so years, non-union work — which is truly what our next fight will be over — would not be the threat it is now.
They could have filed a lawsuit against aftra for violating their charter which states they are only allowed to do tv in the manner of a live broadcast. Go read their charter. It is a legally binding afreement
First: Thanks Nikke. All the other entertainment press? Same story? PUSSIES.
Fact: Standing Federal Labor Law says:
SAG: “all scripted programming for television” (and 100% of film – all movies at the time, were film), this from 1951 -1952, last definitive NLRB decisions, because of the TVA, (AFTRA’s predecessor, which soon merged with AFRA, the radio union, thus, AFTRA) trying to organize a ton of NY-based TV WITH employers).
AFTRA: “live TV, or television performed in a live manner.” (meaning THEN, and NOW – “live, going out as it’s happening,” NOT “filmed in front of a live audience,” then edited and broadcast in a month. No – LIVE TV.
That is, and always has been, AFTRA’s TV jurisdiction.
Why hasn’t SAG made a “sweeping, let’s settle this – AGAIN – once and for all – Unit Clarification Claim to the NLRB in the past?”
BECAUSE IT HAD 100% of MOVIES and 95% of all scripted programming for television! Until the SECOND UFS took over! So, BEFORE that, it was an OPTION, but NOT a necessity.
NOW? A NECESSITY!
The criteria in the NLRB claim for the employers who made the deals with the TVA up to 1950? “Prove to us (the NLRB) the “workers” – actors – do a DIFFERENT job- and, therefore require a DIFFERENT bargaining unit.” (the TVA, not SAG).
Result? Ruling you see above. Contrary to revisionist historians, NOTHING has changed. It was, and remains, a sweeping, definitive ruling.
ALL “shared-jurisdiction” agreements between SAG and AFTRA between then and now? Have been voluntarily negotiated agreements, between two unions.
Not one EVER changed standing Federal Labor Law. Unions can DO THAT UNLESS ONE OF THE UNIONS BRINGS A CLAIM AGAINST THE EMPLOYERS WHO HAVE STARTED GIVING AWAY ITS JURISDICTION TO THE OTHER UNION.
In the ABSENCE of such a claim? The NLRB does NOT GET INVOLVED. That’s not what the NLRB does.
Digital, as was made clear in the early ’50′s, (even though it didn’t exist at the time) by SPECIFIC language, IS NOT THE DETERMINING FACTOR IN JURISDICTION.
“Method of capture” is NOT the determining factor. Repeat until your eyes bleed, “digital is shared jurisdiction”-heads. It’s NOT.
Verbatim:
Producers have agreed to the following language “the parties confirm their mutual understanding and agreement that the term “motion pictures” as used herein and in all prior agreements between the parties means and includes, and has always meant and included, motion pictures, whether made on or by film, tape or otherwise, and whether produced by means of motion picture cameras, electronic cameras or devices, tape devices or any combination of the foregoing or by any means methods or devices now used or which may hereafter be adopted.”
END OF STORY.
The rest is the current, pro-merger-at-any-cost government of SAG, NOT taking a Unit Clarification Claim to the NLRB, by majority vote of the SAG national board, to have this FARCE ended, once and for all.
The FACT this national board, and this SAG government, have ALLOWED ALL TV TO GO TO AFTRA IN 2 YEARS, AFTER 60 YEARS OF UNQUESTIONED, FEDERAL LABOR LAW MANDATED, DOMINANCE, without a WORD of protest!?
Hello?
The current government of SAG has participated in a pro-SAG-merger, AFTRA, and AMPTP supported plan to merge into a producer compliant union that never strikes.
Jonathan Handel, on this same story in HR asks “where is the proof of that?” Jonathan – a conspiracy? Is, by definition, not a group of people who release PROOF of their conspiracy, until they are caught and FORCED to. It’s kinda a secret Jonathan, you know?
Hello?
Why? Because it will save the AMPTP BILLIONS of dollars in the coming years in new media costs to SAG or rather, “New Union for a New World!” actors – because UFS-led SAG signed THE WORST CONTRACT IN THE HISTORY OF SAG, and SAG has undergone a death spiral since the SECOND UFS took over.
Why? Current SAG leadership wants to kill SAG, to facilitate merger with AFTRA. Hello? Do we make adult decisions based on what is happening in front of our eyes, or, just make stuff up?
The A-list, the “stars” have abandoned the rank and file SAG membership. Used to be the A-list supported the rank-and-file WITHOUT EXCEPTION. They viewed their fellow actors in terms of their OWN best interests. VERY few actors also wrote and directed. Now? Many, many do. CONFLICT OF INTEREST.
They do NOT want to publicly align themselves with the rank-and-file SAG membership (the VAST majority of us) over labor issues they don’t need to concern themselves with, because they make obscene pay-days and back ends, and are rich and self-insured. They do NOT want to take a stance on behalf of the rabble – “What will I come back to after a strike? Will I still be in demand? Will I be blacklisted (yeah, I SAID it) when I return?”
The A-list has become a group of invertebrates. If the A-list stood with SAG rank-and-file to get simply the FAIR deal the previous administration of SAG was asking for in 2008? We’d HAVE THAT DEAL NOW. And ALL this would be in our rear view mirror.
When Tom Hanks made that “vote for this deal (2009) and vote for merger!” video, he was declining to mention he had a MASSIVE INCENTIVE, AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Instead, he made it seem he was just ” ‘ol Tom, fellow actor, tellin all the chillun what’s what, and what to do.”
BULLSHIT.
He NEVER should have made that video. It was a complete sell-out of SAG actors. I LOVE the guy! Funny, great, American film actor, but folks, let’s be real – Tom Hanks, the biggest independent producer in Hollywood (Playtone) PRODUCED “Band of Brothers” NON-UNION! – JUST before Global Rule One took effect. A CLASSIC piece of work, that will generate revenue for decades. The actors? NO RESIDUALS. A one time buy-out.
Actors want ONE thing: resolution into ONE kick-ass union that gets us a fair deal in new media, which we MUST have. Currently, in new media? We have NO MINIMUMS, and free windows, allowing re-use of our work, purposefully designed to be manipulated to lead to the END of residuals – just as the PRODUCERS SAID THEY WANTED TO DO IN THE NY TIMES IN SUMMER 2007, JUST BEFORE ALL THIS BEGAN.
How do we do what’s in our best interests? VOTE THESE PEOPLE OUT. Vote people (new SAG leadership) in, who will IMMEDIATELY file a Unit Clarification Claim with the NLRB, get SAG’s rightful TV jurisdiction back (we have LOST 40% of our P&H contributions due to this theft, which was done ON PURPOSE and not remedied or even objected to – ON PURPOSE – BY UFS) then, have show-by-show elections: “SAG, AFTRA, or no union” (that would be the choice), ALL the current AFTRA shows that SHOULD belong to SAG, will vote SAG, SAG regains ALL its rightful TV jurisdiction to go with it’s 100% of movies (Digital movies? Doesn’t matter – 100% SAG. Again “method of capture” is NOT the determining factor, it’s what the actors DO, the WORK WE DO).
Push AFTRA back to it’s ONLY REAL jurisdiction in TV – “live” as in “going-out-right-now,” where it will wither on the vine due to radically reduced jurisdiction and income.
Then, after getting SAG’s house in order, make it clear, WITH a strike authorization in hand BEFORE negotiations, SAG WILL strike if new media is not completely overhauled to allow actors to grow WITH producers in a fair deal AS THE NET MONETIZES AND BECOMES THE SOLE DELIVERER OF CONTENT.
Faced with THAT kind of solidarity, do you think the AMPTP will risk a strike that deprives them of their oxygen – the A-list? That infinitesimal group of actors currently trying to tell the REST of us what to do, the way things stand right now? OR, do we go back to telling THEM, the A-list, via “one actor one vote” in a ground-up (SAG), NOT top-down (AFTRA), union, what to do, and DARE, in the event a labor action to get a good contract makes strike necessary, the A-list to cross a SAG picket line?
“Hmm, become a pariah, for the rest of my career as a union breaker and a scab, OR, support the rank and file?”
Look, this is NOT tough-guy rhetoric. NOBODY EVER WANTS TO STRIKE. It is a destructive, costly last -resort move to be used ONLY when the producers become totally intransigent on an issue, or issues, VITAL to our ability to MAKE A LIVING.
Do YOU think the AMPTP can afford to give us a fair, inclusive deal in new media, restore clip consent, product placement protections, and force majeure?
OF COURSE THEY CAN.
If faced with a group of appeasers? WHY SHOULD THEY? THEY’RE BOTTOM LINE BUSINESSMEN! THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ACTORS! THEY JUST WANT TO CUT COSTS – THAT’S WHAT BOTTOM LINE BUSINESSMEN DO!
Producers do NOT need “flexibility.” They need CLEAR, CONCISE, FAIR, BOUNDARIES, outside of which they KNOW the union representing actors will STRIKE.
THAT’S OUR COLLECTIVE FUTURE AT STAKE.
Brilliant and clear as always Matt – Thank you!
As usual this non-working loudmouthed bully-boy above is seeking nothing more than the attention he can’t get in his failed career. Screaming with capital letters doesn’t do it. All performers in front of cameras and microphones should be in one union and if you don’t think broadcasters are performers you obviously don’t watch the news on TV.
Hey “working actor.”
First, I’m not the type to get into a pissing match over “career,” but I’ll put MY credits up against YOUR credits any day of the week, you just have to come out from behind your pseudonym and let us now how fabulously successful you are. Come on, show us some balls and do it, then, we can talk.
Second – why don’t you refute with FACTS some of the issues I raise? That would help your push-back.
MY CREDITS ARE BIGGER THAN YOUR CREDITS!!
Hahahahaha. This is why you will fail and we will win. You think you are the backbone of the industry? WE are the backbone of the industry. Without us YOU WOULDN’T EXIST! Without you, we will carry on and make more money than we do now. You think you are not replaceable? Just look around you.
You’ve already been replaced.
This the funniest comment yet. This should be bronzed. “Without us you wouldn’t exist!” Really? I think… we would exist. I think your abilities fall far short of us not “existing.” I think you’re either a merger shill, again, like Ligon, or Browde, or one of those assholes, or, you’re actually a suit who thinks he’s important. I’d have to go with Ligon. Single biggest asshole in the entire asshole army.
No, you’re not going to “win.” Sorry.
All of this is why I remain astounded that SAG and AFTRA didn’t already merge years ago. It should all be under the same umbrella so that all your work is going to count towards benefits eligibility, rather than in just one category. What we have here instead is actors turning on each other, and it’s really sad because aren’t we all trying to make a living here? That is what is making for the loss of power for actors in the workplace; not because AFTRA is “stealing” anything. (Which they’re not; they’re doing what they should be doing.)
Which is what? Undercutting SAG on Rates!!!
Why didn’t we merge years ago? Because we didn’t need to frickin’ merge! AFTRA wasn’t about taped/recorded television programming – it was (and is, legally) about LIVE television (which was adopted from radio, which was also live).
And we shouldn’t have to frickin’ merge now. The fact that AFTRA has underhandedly and illegally stolen television from SAG – and therefore flooded their membership banks, and coffers, with inexperienced “actors” – does not mean that AFTRA is valid with regards to actors’ contracts. In other words, just because AFTRA’s television contracts exist that doesn’t mean they’re viable.
Wouldn’t it have been better if, years ago, all actors just came to SAG and left AFTRA to the live broadcasters? For SAG, yes. But for AFTRA, not so much.
One more thing to keep in mind: what is being called a “merger” is incorrect – the two guilds will not simply merge. If this “merger” happens there will likely be a brand new union/guild, encompassing members (and leadership, such as it is) of both unions, and likely weakening and watering down the power (such as it exists now) of both.
But if AFTRA were stopped, filed against and investigated for malfeasance now before any assumed legitimacy takes place…? AFTRA is out of the picture (pun intended), and a “merger” becomes moot. Unnecessary. All AFTRA contracts would be put on hold, if not voided altogether. No further weakening of SAG. In fact, without AFTRA coddling producers, SAG would regain ALL of its once-great bargaining power.
And isn’t that what all actors really want anyway?
You’re wrong. If it were one union, there would be no need to turn against each other and attempt to race to the bottom in order for each union to attempt to protect itself at the expense of the other. A single, larger union —-> much more bargaining power. You and so many others have this completely backwards and it’s only hurting actors.
Hi Nikki – I’d like to see a story about how many, in hard numbers, have lost their SAG insurance since TV shows went AFTRA. IF this is possible. How many vested actors (10 years +) have had a decrease in work and what percentage? What is the percentage of all vested workers losing benefits? Thanks.
Matt, amazing. Thank you for a great recap, and a plan for a fight.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid most union members out there don’t really get it. They just want the fighting to be over and have been brain washed to believe that a merger is the only answer. With all the political fatigue and fighting over our actual government in DC, folks don’t invest in our union politics. it’s a harrowing mirror of our national state of affairs— the middle class assisting in it’s own demise. AFTRA did this to us. And they are loving it. And we played along.
I have a question to both sides..
No one seems to mention what will happen to pensions and which plan any new income (if I ever work again) will that pension credit go to? (under a one union plan)
Remember (hypothetically) if this is a new acting job in merged, one union world … under which P&H is this credit going to? Sag’s or Aftra’s? Say the job is a commercial or a TV show? Both union’s jurisdiction currently converge and clash in these categories…I have pensions in both unions… Which union will I get this new credit? (No one ever discusses this)
The P&H payment schedules and math of each plan is very different…I certainly would rather have my pension credits continue to go to the better pension plan…SAG.
This really needs to be discussed… If we merge… what’s going to happen to our pensions?
Also, what will happen to actors who are just short of vesting in either pension by a year or two… this really impacts them… What P&H will get credits if they get work in this newly merged one union? How will they ever vest?
We really need to hear from both sides on this important financial topic.
FB
Pensions. P&H. The truth?
THEY DON’T KNOW.
They can’t predict because they can’t BEGIN to work it out it until after we “merge.”
Best guess? From what I’ve heard, read, etc., SAG pension? Freezes. AFTRA pension? Freezes.
“New Union for a New World!” P&H?
Kicks in for all new work covered by new union.
But don’t forget – if there isn’t a compete overhaul of new media, there may not even BE the cash to support the obligations of the plans.
You cannot lose one penny of your pension, either SAG or AFTRA, due to Federal law. Even if you are not fully vested. Only following merger can the trustees of both plans start the process of planning the merger of the pension plans. It has been done before, it can be done now – without anyone losing any value they have accrued. In my opinion, there could be a brand new plan, while the present plans shore up to be able to pay out their pensions until the last pensioner dies. there may even be way to transfer credits to a new plan.
Tom Ligon (working actor. no, he’s not) says so.
What does he know about pensions?
Zip.
As the Mercer memo made clear in the 2003 bum-rush to merger, it is by no means clear what will happen to pensions, hence even Tom Ligon saying “in my opinion.”
Do you want more than “in my opinion?” It’s only your credits towards a pension, it’s only whether or not you qualify for the new P&H with any reasonable chance of making it if your not making a lot of money in any given year, you know, your health care and you pension, that’s all.
But Tom Ligon’s “opinion” is it’ll probably work out.
Get SAG back, get a good contact back (the only way we’ll get a good contract back) and then, we can easily, with the P&H we already have, until it was decimated by UFS’s give-away of TV to AFTRA to facilitate merger (shouldn’t that be a crime?) – we can get back the best P&H program going, one that was the gold standard… until UFS took over.
Notice, “until UFS took over,” is the point after which a whole lot of stuff went south for SAG?