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SAG Dissidents Win by David Hakim
The good news from the Screen ACTORS GUILD is that the reigning blockheads in the SAG Boardroom have some new competition - which could alter the stalled negotiations with Hollywood producers. The bad news: Nothing's going to happen until after October 18, when the new Board holds its first meeting.
'Unite for Strength,' the dissidents' faction spotlighting Tom Hanks and Sally Field, won six of the available eleven Hollywood-division seats on SAG's National Board. The new numbers are expected to empower moderates inside the Guild, and could change the tenor of the negotiations with the studios, stalled in July after a protracted period of strife for both negotiating teams.
The election was fiercely fought, throwing up a challenge to the leadership of SAG President Alan Rosenberg and his incumbent support faction, 'Membership First.' Among the Unite for Strength candidates were Amy Brenneman of Private Practice, and veteran actor Ken Howard (Coach), both of whom were elected.
Rosenberg's statement in response to the election results most certainly drew some guffaws (since 'unity' and 'focus' have been lacking in the SAG Boardroom since before Melissa Gilbert was edged out by Rosenberg's gang): "Now it's time to work in tandem on behalf of SAG members throughout the country, to get a fair contract we can all be proud of. A union divided benefits only the employers, and SAG members deserve nothing less than unified, focused leadership."
The political tipping-point has been reached in the SAG Boardroom, which was accurately described as 'off the rails' in the last year. The dissident moderates now have enough votes to reach a majority, and it is rumored that Rosenberg might begin to make slight alterations to his stance on the negotiations. With support from moderates in SAG's New York division and several regional branches, the Unite for Strength group can now best the narrow majority previously enjoyed by Membership First on the 71-member National Board.
Membership First, led by 'the flying monkeys' under Kent McCord (and other well-known actors seemingly dissociated from the reality of the Hollywood industry), has to this point dominated SAG's negotiating committee, eventuating the stalemate with the studios. It is hoped in industry corners high and low that the new faces (and attitudes) on the Board will remobilize the stalled talks with producers - although we are not likely to see an end to the standoff any time in the near future.
Since June 30, SAG's 120,000 members have worked without a new contract, relying on points of a three-year-old contract that could have been renegotiated retroactively in the final negotiation - but retroactivity was taken off the table in the producers' 'final offer.' Under the sway of Membership First's unrealistic demands, SAG leadership vehemently contests producer notions of how actors should be paid for shows to be distributed on the Internet and via other new media.
Unite for Strength candidates would be well-advised to unseat former scab Doug Allen as SAG's chief negotiator - or even sack him - though that reasonable response to his shenan-igans could increase already-existing rancor between the Guild's warring factions. SAG is still reeling in turmoil from the turnover in the executive suites - Allen is the Guild's third executive director in three years.
And while many think that SAG's bargaining leverage would be weakened by replacing Allen before the contract negotiations are settled, some think that it couldn't possibly affect the negotiation endgame, since the studios have already made a very firm 'final offer' that they are unlikely to alter or modify in any way. So sacking Allen could have a salutary effect on the endgame, demonstrating to the producers that SAG is ready to align itself with every other Hollywood guild and union. (We may never know what effect sacking Allen would have, since the new players probably don't have enough power to get rid of him - more's the pity.)
The studios have adamantly rejected SAG's chief demand - extension of jurisdiction over all shows specifically created for the Web. Though that goal is widely supported by SAG members, it is unlikely ever to be shared by the producers, and until SAG can come up with a logical reason for the demand, the studios will probably continue to reject it.
The best that has been offered in the area of jurisdiction is to extend it to shows that already have Guild ties and are now moving to the Web, and SAG has reacted wildly to such offers, based on a number of outside influences - mostly so-called poaching of certain TV shows by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. But SAG doesn't have a single tape (or, more precisely, non-film) contract, and AFTRA is positioned to make the best use of new technologies.
The dissident actors have long accused the Guild's leadership of torpedoing a proposed merger with AFTRA that was 15 years in the effort, noting that SAG has only itself to blame if AFTRA scoops up some contracts that SAG ignored until it was too late. More recently, there were charges of mishandling the contract negotiations and waging an ill-fated campaign against AFTRA's resolution of their own studio contracts (a resolution that Membership First views as having weakened its own bargaining position). That campaign, which amounted to interfering with the internal workings of a union, would seem to be in violation of federal law, but as yet no charges have been filed by AFTRA or its attorneys.
Last spring, AFTRA settled its negotiation with the studios of a three-year prime-time TV contract that followed the template of agreements negotiated by writers and directors. That agreement was criticized by SAG leaders as "a bad deal for actors," and the two unions continue a turf war over jurisdiction in TV, where AFTRA recently signed several new shows.
Membership First, claiming to represent 'middle-class actors,' continues to oppose merging the two unions, charging that AFTRA membership includes too many non-actors and that SAG's contracts are superior to those negotiated by its former 'sister union.'
In an interesting side note, SAG's Hollywood division logged only 13,793 ballots (24.84 % of SAG voters there), and New York logged only 5,458 ballots returned (23.76 % of SAG voters there). It is reasonable to conclude that the number of ballots returned in the regional branch elections approximated these percentages. So once more, the working conditions and livelihoods of a group of people are being decided by the most-politically active, most vocal quarter of the entire group - and in this case, the 'entire group' comprises 120,000 members.
Counting on SAG's increasing isolation from Hollywood's other guilds and the slimness of the possibility of a strike vote, the studios are content to starve the actors out. In the current deteriorating economy, SAG leaders lack the muscle to get a strike vote and have had to watch helplessly as special waivers allowed a number of major feature films to proceed that otherwise would have been postponed by fears of an actors strike.
So in Hollywood (and beyond) it's very much 'business as usual' - hurry up and wait.Posted on Oct 02, 2008 - 10:39 PM