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The Screen Actors Guild’s Pension and Health Plans just informed members that minimum earnings to qualify for health coverage are increasing 2% effective January 1, 2012. Out-of-pocket maximums for individuals and families also are increasing. SAG notified members in its latest “Take 2 Newsletter” just mailed and on SAG’s website. Minimum annual earnings requirements will rise to $30,750 for Plan 1 and to $15,100 for Plan 2. Out-of-pocket in-network maximums are also increasing by $500 for individuals to $1,750, and by $1,000 to $3,500 for families. On the pension side, the earnings level increase is accelerated and a pension credit will require $20,000 in earnings effective January 1, 2012 instead of 2013. The number of qualifying days of employment will remain the same. This bad news will undoubtedly have an effect on SAG leadership’s determination to merge with AFTRA. Reps of both unions meet this weekend in a third set of confabs to hammer out details of the merger plan with the goal of presenting a final proposal to the national boards in January. The SAG/AFTRA Group for One Union will begin conferring Friday and conclude on Tuesday. So far barely any details were disclosed after meetings in June and August.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Reminds me of their first manifesto where they only wanted actors with a certain amount of work hours to be able to vote… thought i may understand how you need to have work a certain amount of time to obtain coverage considering that 95% of actors are struggling that’s just pretty wrong.
Decent health care for all– that’s my definition of “the right to life”…
Right on. Let’s tax the churches to pay for it. After all, Jesus healed the sick for free.
I love you, Cooch!
Tax tax tax. Even the churches are having a hard time. When people aren’t working, what are they to give? And since Jesus did heal for “Free”, cutout the middleman, go to source, you already know His name. Have a good one.
Funny how people scream and squawk about wanting separation of church and state….until they think they can get money out of them.
Well maybe they should stop trying to influence our laws and politics. Funny how they want to retain their 501c3 status while doing so. You cant have it both ways.
All of this while the plans are involved in scandals right and left – first a whistleblower who claims embezzlement and called in the Labor dept, now it looks like the plans are turning the tables on him. What is really going on Nikki? It’s getting ugly.
Save your “outrage” for your elected Federal representatives. Every sane person knows that healthcare should be equal for every U.S. citizen, with a single-payer system. The failure of our government to overcome the $$$ lobbying of the insurance companies is a disgrace. This story wouldn’t even be news if these people weren’t crooks.
Just a question. If there is a merger wouldn’t the combined earnings from SAG and AFTRA work count towards the health and pension minimums?
I agree that you should have some leverage with a merger regarding healthcare. However, egos are involved. It’s all about jockeying for position. Have a good one.
The best thing to do, would be to stop AFTRA from raiding SAG jurisdiction. AFTRA had only one or two shows a few years ago.
AFTRA has a lousy pension. It was designed for broadcasters not actors. AFTRA has a lousy health plan too. If SAG merges with AFTRA, the new unions health and pension plan will be worse than the current SAG plans.
NO. Not necessarily. There is a large difference between the two plans- the SAG plan has benefits that are far richer- so a plan merger could very well reduce their benefits further. That and there is no formal ERISA compliance study- so who knows what the total impact of a merged plan would be, or it it is even possible.
Stop spending our dues for political gain, and keep it for funding what we pay it for!
Hospitals, pills, and doctors costs are skyrocketing…….why is anyone surprised?
The coverage of this by SAG’s own publications, shows how frightened the merger-zombies are, as they should be. Any sane person understands what happened after Ned Vaughn-UFS-leadership took over SAG:
All SAG TV went to AFTRA, in two years.
Before Ned Vaughn-UFS-led SAG?
SAG has nearly 95% of “all motion pictures for television,” its jurisdiction.
After?
None, going forward. It is ALL lost to, or given to, or allowed to go to, or purposefully given away to, AFTRA.
Without a public outcry, let alone a Unit Clarification claim to the NLRB by the NED, David White of SAG. Or the President, Ken Howard. Or the Secretary Treasurer, Amy Aquino. Or, of course, the 1st VP, Ned Vaughn. Or, it must be said, the merger-zombie, pro-merger majority of the SAG national board that would have to vote up a claim to the NLRB. They are as responsible as anyone.
Not a word, let alone action. That would have been inconceivable before this administration: progressive, or moderate, SAG government. Inconceivable.
This SAG administration, as has been said, since they started doing this, has a “brilliant strategy” in mind (as described, and praised, by our own President, Ken Howard, from the dais of a SAG event) -
“If all SAG TV goes to AFTRA, it will create a massive ‘split earnings’ problem. We tell the membership, this is the FORMER administration’s fault (ridiculous), then we say the answer is: MERGER!”
The problem is, now, the chickens are coming home to roost. You cannot purposefully destroy the financial underpinnings of the Pension and Health program of SAG, by stripping it of up to 40% of the P&H contributions, by the loss of SAG TV, to AFTRA, then, expect that not to begin to destroy the fabric of the plan – without HAVING to acknowledge it publicly.
And believe me, it KILLS UFS-USAN-merger-zombie-SAG, and AFTRA, let alone the trustees of both unions, and the AMPTP, that this in now having to be publicly acknowledged.
What is the SOLE MAJOR difference this time, as opposed to the 17 other times they tried to merge SAG and AFTRA?
The loss, in 2 – 2! – years (out of 60 – 60! – since the NLRB decisions giving SAG “all motion pictures made for television”) – the loss of all TV going forward to AFTRA.
Who’s fault is that? The current UFS-led – Ken Howard, Amy Aquino, Ned Vaughn and David White, Duncan Crabtree-ireland administration of SAG.
You can’t have it both ways: you defend SAG jurisdiction like a tiger, or -
You don’t.
They didn’t. SAG P&H is on the ropes. These people must go, now, before it is too late. They have already done incalculable damage.
It is a plan to facilitate merger, and it is blowing up in our faces.
Yep all you say is true, and you state it very well.
So, now what? Seriously. What can be done?
As a member of SAG…I’m just really glad that my husband works in Healthcare. Really. The only thing I use my SAG Card for is discount tickets to the TCM Film Festival. Other than that? Everything they offer in regards to pension and healthcare, union members can get better someplace else.
It’s a really pretty card that changes color everytime you get it that I pay for twice a year to get discounted tickets and every once in a while eat before the non union actors and hope a light does not bonk me in the head to hear union reps side with the production staff before the actor. I also get the special privilege of seeing more non union work on electronic submissions where producers post instead of the amazingly laughable service called iActor.
Oh. And the screeners are nice. Yea. The best thing being a SAG Member in the 95 percent is getting the chance to see the five percent work for free and here them tell me to be a “Loyal Member” at some SAG Meeting (where if you are a starving actor who is SAG…go there. The *food is free* that is why people go).
It still boggles my mind that the world’s richest country does not have universal health care for all of it’s citizens. The ‘system’ was broken long before any housing crisis or trillion dollar robbery on wall street.
As someone who spent an entire career supporting SAG, it’s so goddamned sad to see what this latest group of lopsided leaders are doing to it…Shame on you!
Appalling. My husband is a LAUSD schoolteacher and we always take his healthcare over mine. SAG has been really bumming me out lately; just getting the middle finger everywhere you turn.
Jamie Pressly, a fine actress and a published author…is an extremely intelligent person. I would support her as an advocate for all of us actors…period. Thanks for the forum to express my humble thoughts. Regards, adam sheppard