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Actors Still… by David Hakim
By the time you read this, we’ll all know whether SAG has initiated the long-dreaded strike. As of this writing, the nation’s actors (read: Hollywood’s ‘bunch of idiots,’ to quote SAG’s New York Division leadership) are still at it, with infighting going on in the SAG boardroom and a fresh awakening of its years-long rivalry with AFTRA.
In the wake of the WGA strike that crippled the industry in Hollywood and beyond, the SAG and AFTRA negotiating teams met to decide what would be on their lists for renewal of both their contracts this summer. Things seemed to be progressing smoothly, with both bargaining teams reaching a point of rapprochement, when AFTRA suddenly announced that its team would be bargaining alone – and soon. Staggered, the SAG leadership started shooting off very negative statements, but AFTRA leadership remained unruffled as usual. Probably calmer than many would be, in light of SAG’s repeated torpedo jobs on the merger that scores of members from both guilds had spent almost 20 years trying to achieve. Common opinion held that AFTRA would toe the SAG line, and common opinion was wrong.
“Nope,” sayeth the calm heads at AFTRA (we’re paraphrasing), “our responsibility is not to SAG, nor to some idealized conception of ‘actor’ and ‘solidarity’ that SAG leaders exploit for their own purposes. Our responsibility is to our membership – and we will protect our members and cut the best deal for them, with or without SAG. Oh, and by ‘with or without SAG,’ we mean ‘definitely without.’” And with that, AFTRA reps went in and started negotiating, not just for their members’ contract, but for jurisdiction over a number of TV shows that had previously been the province of SAG. And many think that’s swell.
Well, many in SAG and outside SAG feel strongly that the union’s boardroom has been in the hands of flying monkeys for just about long enough, and the other guilds always watch with an amusement tinged with grim disgust and profound fear: it was SAG that shut down the industry in the last long strike (and have they noticed that the commercials never came home from Canada, since commercial producers discovered that Canadian actors don’t get residuals?). It’s kind of a 2 + 2 = 4 deal, see, but the Membership First zealots apparently never took the new math, which is still a lot like the old math. But SAG’s membership comprises about 95% mostly-nonworking, non-inside-Hollywood, nonspeaking actors – who consistently vote on the work situations and livelihoods of people who do have jobs – good jobs. That’s the devil’s bargain they made (bringing in SEG members and quadrupling their ranks without tiered voting), and it’s repeatedly coming home to bite them in the assets. There are still rumors floating around of a group of working Hollywood actors who want to find a new bargaining agent, leaving the rest of the membership in the dust, and we can expect more closures of satellite offices, as both SAG and AFTRA are forced to tighten their belts.
SAG leadership had the bad manners and effrontery to write a sharp letter that skewered DGA leadership in a kind of cart-before-the-horse argument that the DGA had made a deal that would be harmful to the industry in settling before the WGA got through with their ill-conceived and poorly-planned strike. In an open letter sent to the press, SAG complained about a lot of things – mostly that the details of the deal had not been revealed in the DGA’s press release. Come on, boys and girls – details of complex labor negotiations are never revealed in press releases, and especially not before the membership has had a chance to vote on them, and it’s just pure bad form to make charges about a sister guild, and especially when you know nothing about the situation you’re complaining about.
And it’s interesting that the DGA letter contained the phrase, “Each guild must act in the best interest of its own membership,” and then its authors – SAG prexy Alan Rosenberg and National ED Doug Allen – had the audacity to complain about AFTRA leaving SAG in the dust to take care of its own members’ needs. And meanwhile, those boys still want to slug it out with AFTRA, when they could be cutting costs by sharing real estate (remote offices) and staff, and consolidating power. But that would take a certain level of sensibility, and both Rosenberg and Allen have that in short supply (Allen is still explaining why he crossed his own union’s picket line – not a good sign for a chief negotiator).
But things then took an even weirder turn. When AFTRA closed a deal with the producers last month, SAG jumped in to interfere with the internal workings of a sister guild – before AFTRA could get the deal ratified by a membership vote. SAG sent letters to all its members who also hold AFTRA cards, telling them to vote to “send AFTRA back to the table” (as if that could ever get them a better deal). That little bit of meddling prompted the New York SAG leaders to call Kent McCord & Co ‘a bunch of idiots’ (a collective sobriquet that many in Hollywood feel should be carved on the gravestones of the Membership First band), and, if such interference isn’t illegal under federal law, it certainly is unethical.
And then the surreal took over in Hollywood: Rosenberg, with all his hubris sticking out, challenged AFTRA President Roberta Reardon to a debate (!) before the membership of both unions (as in, “Book the Los Angeles Sports Arena, Hazel – we’re gonna argue them into submission!”). Reardon of course turned him down, calling Rosenberg’s proposal ‘disingenuous,’ which is like calling any of the current crop of female psycho-celebrities ‘troubled.’ Rosenberg’s challenge, on the face of it, could only be construed as a crude attempt to keep the argument going, thus prolonging the agony of all of Hollywood as the industry holds its collective breath waiting to see what will happen. Rosenberg’s tactic was both unethical and showed extremely poor form.
But actors have never been shy of poor form – if they think they can stare down the producers, they’re in dreamland. It’s a little like Val Kilmer saying publicly that he could play a Vietnam vet better than a Vietnam vet could play a Vietnam veteran: hubris mixed with a healthy dose of purblindness and a vast quantity of conceit. Everyone in Hollywood’s on the train now (DGA, WGA, AFTRA, Teamsters, IATSE) except SAG. And apparently SAG wasn’t paying attention: WGA took to the streets in a strike that cost the industry billions, and, in the end, they got just what had been offered to them in the first round.
But the actors think they have more power than the rest of Hollywood. You already know what happened, but from my vantage point, I’d have to say, “Well, as Granddaddy used to tell us, ‘Never happen.’” Posted on Jun 30, 2008 - 08:17 PM