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The latest update from the SAG-AFTRA National Board confirms one thing: the unparalleled secrecy that shrouded the leaderships of both unions separately before the merger will continue now that they’re combined. First and foremost, I don’t know why members tolerate the Board’s terse announcement that ”Co-Secretary Treasurers Amy Aquino and Matt Kimbrough provided an update on the union’s financials and reviewed the first quarter results” – with no details provided. Those reports should be made public. Same goes with the Pension, Health & Retirement Report just received by the Board from the trustees of the SAG-Producers Pension & Health Plans and the AFTRA Health & Retirement Plans. But where is the report itself? Let’s not forget that during the pending SAG-AFTRA merger, no future plans for the two unions’ pension and health plans – not even whether they’d be operated separately or combined — were revealed or even formally studied by SAG and/or AFTRA leaderships.
Present leadership likes to point out that both P&H plans are run separately from the union. But some of SAG Guild’s officers have been SAG P&HP trustees. For instance, David White was President of the Board of Trustees of the SAG P&H Plans and the National Executive Director of the SAG Guild. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland was a Trustee of the SAG P&HP and the General Counsel of the SAG Guild. John McGuire was a Trustee of the SAG P&HP and the Senior Adviser of the SAG Guild. All three may be among the trustees of the soon-to-be merged plan. In my opinion, it’s a day late and a dollar short for the SAG P&H Plan to come clean about exactly what has gone on or is going on regarding this as well as any and all city, county, and/or federal investigations into allegations of embezzlements and cover-ups.
Related:
Controversial Bruce Dow Exited As SAG P&H Plan CEO
SAG P&H Plan Rocked By Lawsuit: Targets CEO Bruce Dow
Feds Probing SAG P&H Embezzlements/Cover-Ups Allegations
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Thank you, Nikki. You are the only source of information on this travesty.
First of all, trustees to the plans are prevented by state and federal law to divulge any information regarding the plan unless authorized by the plan. Second, the trustees to the plan are split 50-50 between union and management. The trustees from the union side can push as hard as they want and bring workable solutions to the table until they’re are blue in the face but can’t force those from the management side to move according to any timetable other than their own. If you have a beef with how long it’s taking to find a solution to the question of how to merge the plans you should be taking it up with the management side. You know, the ones you’re beholden to for all your ad revenue. And as for what’s going on regarding allegations of embezzlements and cover-ups, it’s been discussed, divulged, dispelled, and detailed numerous times by SAG-AFTRA leadership, the plans themselves, news outlets and every trade publication out there. There were no cover-ups. Participants’ earnings were never jeopardized. Both plans are healthy, and trustees are working, as they always have, to protect and grow the plans.
Boh, YOUR STATEMENTS SOUND LIKE LIES!
It absolutely has NOT been discussed, divulged, dispelled, and detailed numerous times by SAG-AFTRA leadership, the plans themselves, news outlets and every trade publication out there.
Also, what are you referring to SPECIFICALLY when you say that Deadline.com is beholden to SAG-AFTRA management for its revenue? If you have facts to back it up, please explain…we’re listening?
If you dont have facts, shame on you for posting those lies here.
Actually, there was at least one insurance payment to recover funds lost to embezzlement and/or misuse of funds. So, that contradicts your suspiciously worded claim that “participants earnings were never jeopardized.” I don’t know about “jeopardized,” but they sure were stolen.
Thank you Nikki for this story. It should be continued with an uncovering of what is really going on. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the whole administrative group is bloated after this merger, skimming money off the top for themselves.
Well, yeah. Didnt a few retire with huge severances right after the merger?
I totally agree. It is our union and we know nothing. This entire mess is indeed a travesty. What have you to say, leaders of SAG-AFTRA?
THANK YOU for reporting on this. Please don’t takeme pressure off !
It’s a shame, but the majority of voting SAG membership is obviously comfortable being uniformed, uneducated, and seemingly proud of their ignorance. Of course to anyone able to think, the death knell was heard when the membership overwhelming approved this merger with no facts and no information– nothing but grinning millionaire producers who also happen to be SAG members speaking as if they understood the needs of the rank while file and offering only simple slogan with no facts. The slogan was “One Union” and it was fed to the membership by the top-earning 1% of the membership. And even with all the talk of late about the injustice of 1% of the whole controlling all the finances SAG membership still can’t comprehend they were duped.
The most honest moment of the whole collapse was when SAG President Ken Howard was asked in a press conference if the merger would help struggling actors. Howard told the joke about about a guy asking his physician if he would be able to play the piano after surgery. The doc says “sure.” And the patient says, “good, because I couldn’t before.” Howard roared at his own joke at the expense of the rank and file union members. Howard thinks unless you have his resume or better you need not be considered by the union–and you shouldn’t be able to vote on issues that may effect his personal earnings. And the saddest part is the union was conceived to help those without the fame that affords people like Howard to negotiate big, fat, bloated deals for themselves.
Hitchcock insisted, “I never said all actors are cattle, what I said was all Actors should be treated like cattle.” And here we are so willingly and quietly walking through the chute.
For the 3,000 or so of us who voted against this merger because of the obvious corruption of those pushing it through, to you Nikki, I say, thanks for keeping us informed.
To all those saying that SAG members are ignorant or apathetic for voting for this merger…most SAG members i know voted against merger. However, there was influx of AFTRA membership prior to the merger. Maybe the votes of people who joined AFTRA just before the merger in order to become SAG members after the merger are partially responsible. I know lots of struggling actors are uninformed, but just because we lost this vote does not mean we all are.
To be clear…
Newly-annointed AFTRA members were not allowed to vote, at least the thousands who joined at the last minute. Secondly, AFTRA has always passed the merger vote – it has been the SAG members, who also must pass the referendum independently of AFTRA, who have been reluctant to merge with AFTRA. And wisely so. AFTRA passing the referendum wasn’t a surprise at all, and therefore had little bearing on the vote. The push was about getting SAG members to swallow it.
Over the past six months since the referendum came to pass, it has become increasingly clear that the vote was rigged. I don’t know who these “82% of voting SAG members” are who supposedly voted ‘yes’, but I’ve met or talked to only four – that’s FOUR out of a couple hundred – who voted ‘yes’. This isn’t sour grapes. I wouldn’t be so skeptical if the entire run-up to the election wasn’t fraught with propaganda and outright lies by our (elected) leaders. Not to mention the shady way in which the votes were counted without anyone from either side allowed to witness the tally.
And as feared, here we are months later without one single step taken toward merging or correcting the pension & health programs. All of the fear-mongering about “vote ‘yes’ to stop splitting your earnings” has proven to be as empty a statement as “Strength in Numbers”.
Zachary is correct – it was about ignorance and apathy. And fear.
Thank you, Nikki. Yes sadly the dopes were duped and they continue to wallow in their ignorance and will soon be squealing when the trough is empty. To the actor who voted for merger:! You voted away everything because…..because you’re stupid. And drunk on kool-aid. This union mess is just that, a mess. But never fear, Ken Howatd got his Pilot this year. Did you? You’re just on the wrong end of the stick, aren’t you?!
So if one of the biggest selling points (to members) was the consolidation of insurance requirements (which AFTRA had ruined for SAG members and SAG brass had let get stolen away), how exactly is this going to end?
Seems like a lot of people are screaming loudly about the: “Political Candidate won’t reveal details” issue, but this decision on behalf of SAG-AFTRA gets no heat?
(I know it’s a RIDICULOUS thing to compare this union’s brass’ actions to that of a political race, but it feels a lot like the same issue.)
When will we get a plan, SAG-AFTRA board?
It was part of the argument to make the merge happen, no?
And when the new contract is negotiated, the new SAGaftra contract that will replace the separate SAG and AFTRA contracts, where will the P&H contributions from this new contract go? Will we, as actors, get to choose to which plan we want to contribute? Or will there still be two separate contracts? Or will there be one contract but the P&H contributions will be SPLIT between the two plans? Nothing has changed, really, except that there are fewer people calling the shots and making the deals.
The new union will be in complete chaos for about five years. It’ll take about that long to merge the pension and health plans, too. And when the old ‘legacy’ contracts expire look out for producers to basically say, “We’ll start negotiating from scratch now, since the unions that we signed the old deals with no longer exist.” If that happens, say ‘bye, bye’ to all residuals unless we’re willing to strike.
There is no reason not to release information to our membership unless there is something to hide.
Our membership has to take responsibility too because we have not been steadfast in our effort to demand what is rightfully ours to know. In the meantime, people will get away with only what we let them.
Proud to be one of the 6% (unfortunately only 6%).
It’s as if SAG-AFTRA elected Mitt Romney their president.
These are the “on the record” words of ex-SAG P&H employee Brenda Garay, posted on sagactor.com over one week ago. Her husband still works at the plan. Her best friend is Mariana Edwards, Pension Manager for the Pension plan, who “left” about 4 weeks ago, clearing out her desk after 27 years, and NOT happy about it, or the state of SAG P&H as she left, due to the reasons detailed by Brenda Gray below. So, here is the exact statement of Brenda Garay.
The merger-zombies are telling Brenda Gray, and Mariana Edwards, who was “indispensable” to the merging of the plans, that THEY know more than THESE two?! (and others, who will be voicing their information soon enough). Do these people, David White, Dunacan Crabtree-Ireland, Ned Vaughn, Amy Aquino, Gabrielle Carteris, Roberta Reardon, Kim Hedgpeth, David Browde, and on and on – have ANY integrity? The ONLY question here, anymore, is, WHERE ARE THE COPS?
————————————
The Truth, The Whole Truth
by Brenda Garay » Sun Oct 28, 2012 2:48 am
Everyone knows that I have always stood up and fought with participants in support of the Plans, the Officers and the staff, I have gotten into many fights on fb and on here because of it. I can be quoted as saying “the Plans would never allow this”, “SAG P&H would never do anything to risk the benefits of the Participants” and so on. Lately it has become more difficult for me to do that with what I’m hearing, researching, reading and remembering. No, I have not gone to the “Darkside” or “Anti-Merger side” which people are referred to if they speak out against what’s going on, what I am doing is going to the side of TRUTH as I believe or know it to be. As I have said many times, I never believed in or supported the merger between SAG and AFTRA, I did not feel it was the right thing or in the best interest of the Participants, however, the votes came in, it happened and I have tried to support what the Participants voted for and believed that they must know what’s best for them so I have kept an open mind and since then I have be trying to be supportive of the merger. Anyone that knows me or has seen anything I have posted when it comes to AFTRA, I have zero respect for their management and staff and that comes directly from my own and my ex co-workers dealings with them for 20years when I was with SAG P&H, AFTRA H&R built that horrible reputation for themselves.
Since the merger it seems like people are working less, why is this? When they were pushing the merger there was talk about how there would be more opportunities because of the dual membership, why has this not happened? Participants are not working and they are receiving dues bills that are more than what they expected or were told, why is this happening? I know that Participants go in and out of eligibility, but why all of a sudden is everyone losing eligibility when they have continuously qualified for many years? Before the merger there were Participants that were actually concerned about the staff on both sides and asked if people would be let go because of over staffing if the merger went through, the answer was NO, they would all still be needed because there would be the same amount of Participants, therefore, same amount of work so both staffs would be kept. Anyone that has worked in an office knows that is bullshit, but I kept my mouth shut. Now we are learning that people are going left and right and the same people that said people would not be let go are now singing a different tune (did not go back and research their names but they only pop in once in awhile on fb). I’m only making reference to all the above because now there is the pressure to merge P&H and H&R. Do I want them to merge, hell no. why? Simply because so many people are unhappy with the current merger and knowing the history of H&R the thought of being as one with them makes me ill. If P&H and H&R merge that directly affects me and my family because I am a disability retiree with P&H and I am covered for health benefits through my husband’s employment with them, so if it is anything like what has gone on with the Unions, who knows what damage will be done to P&H.
These are the topics that keep floating around so here is my input….Do I feel the “Petitioner” who brought allegations against Mr. Dow is an Opportunist? Yes. Do I feel Mr. Dow is a crook? No. Is Mr. Dowdell qualified to be the interim CEO from his experience with the Plans? Yes Is Mr. Dowdell sick? Yes, from what I have heard. Have I heard Mr. Dowdell is out of the office a lot sick? Yes. Is there an oversight committee of 5 or 6 people that EVERYTHING is run by? Yes, from what I have heard. Have the names of the committee members been disclosed? No. Who are they? To the best of my knowledge they are SAG Union Trustees who are also SAG-AFTRA Board Members. Is David White running P&H? From what I have been told yes, he is. Have I ever heard the Pension Plan was in the danger zone “Red”? Yes, but I never thought anything about it because that situation changes with contributions so that information was never a big deal to me.
Here is where I’m having a problem with everything I’m seeing, reading, researching and hearing. When these allegations were made against Mr. Dow, he was removed as CEO and thankfully kept as a consultant because he is amazingly knowledgeable about the Plans from the ground up. I was not surprised when Mr. Dowdell was made the interim CEO because that is the most logical choice from who else knows the Plans from the ground up, I am so sorry that he is sick because I think he would kick ass in that position. I stand by those officers of the Plans and the few Executives that I know and worked with. Where I’m having a problem is understanding the Trustees and Board members, why are their positions all intertwined? How can you have AFTRA H&R Trustees also be SAG-AFTRA Board Members and SAG P&H Trustees also be SAG-AFTRA Board Members? Why would David White who runs SAG-AFTRA have anything to do with running SAG P&H? What happened to the separation between the Union and Guild, Trustees and Board Members? When Participants voted to merge SAG and AFTRA, I don’t think they planned on all the above happening too.
I have gained a whole new respect for actors and actresses outside of their talents, there are some really smart and educated Participants and this whole time that I have been standing up for, defending, fighting on behalf of SAG P&H, I just realized I’m doing this for people that aren’t even running things anymore. Why am I fighting for the Plans when they are not fighting for themselves to protect what has been accomplished and the good reputation that was built through hard work of the employees up to top over so many years?
In closing, I will go on the record again to say that my husband does not, will not and has not discussed any of the above with me. That is his place of employment and he does not talk shop with me and I respect those boundaries and do not ask him anything. I just wish the Plans can go back in time and be how it used to be because I really don’t like the direction it is headed, it saddens me that no one is fighting to protect the legacy of the Screen Actors Guild-Producers Pension and Health Plan.