SAG rallies against AFTRA
Guild member encourage to vote down deal
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The battles between the two unions came into sharp focus Monday as the guild hosted a boisterous anti-AFTRA rally at its Hollywood headquarters -- an event with echoes of the 100-day writers strike as dozens of WGA members donned their familiar red-and-black shirts and hoisted picket signs. Defenders of AFTRA blasted SAG's effort as misguided and full of lies.
SAG is aiming to persuade the 44,000 thesps belonging to both unions to vote against ratification of the pact AFTRA reached with the majors last month. The tenor of the comments during the morning rally raised the specter of SAG leadership moving into strike-prep mode.
"It is essential that we vote down that AFTRA deal now," said SAG prexy Alan Rosenberg, who blamed AFTRA's deal for SAG's lack of progress at the negotiating table. "AFTRA has now abandoned us to make their own deal to the potential detriment of actors. ... AFTRA's capitulations on these major issues has created a problem for our negotiating team and for all of us who are joint cardholders."
Chants of "Vote no!" came from the raucous crowd of about 500 during short speeches by Rosenberg, Keith Carradine, SAG national exec director Doug Allen, WGA West president Patric Verrone and WGA West exec director David Young. There were also repeated boos and catcalls when AFTRA was mentioned.
Rosenberg did not spare the congloms from criticism, pointing to Disney topper Robert Iger's salary and alleging the majors' new-media proposals are deceptively cloaked in the guise of partnership -- when the reality is closer to enslavement.
"What they've actually asked us to do is to pick up those shackles and put them on ourselves," he declared. "Based on what they've told us, it's clear to us that they do not want us to participate as partners but as the lab rats on which they will be experimenting."
The rally served to highlight the gaps between SAG's positions and the congloms as negotiations on a new feature-primetime deal headed into the 25th day Monday, with SAG's contract due to expire June 30. Both sides had no comment Monday and talks were expected to resume today.
"We are in danger of losing rights that we will never regain," SAG board member William Mapother said, citing the use of online clips, jurisdiction over new media, product integration and force majeure contract clauses as major concerns for actors. "We feel that our requests are fair."
Several SAG negotiating committee members indicated SAG still hasn't ditched the idea of asking its 120,000 members for a strike authorization.
Longtime SAG board member Kent McCord told Daily Variety that holding off on an authorization vote is a signal that the guild "wants to make a deal."
"It's in the hands of the employers," McCord added. "They have the ability to prevent any kind of labor action."
Though the event was billed as a "solidarity rally," speakers spent much of the time bashing AFTRA. SAG also distributed fliers with its analysis of AFTRA's deal, such as asserting that the increases in minimums barely keep up with inflation; that AFTRA's low-budget thresholds for new media would allow companies to make nonunion shows; and that rates for streaming are the same as the DGA deal, which SAG has repeatedly criticized.
An AFTRA spokeswoman took issue with the assertions, adding: "It is unfortunate that SAG's primary negotiating tactic seems to be to vote down its sister union's contract on a prayer of achieving a better deal with the AMPTP. Today's event only further demonstrates that they have little support for their misguided strategy. SAG members should encourage guild leadership to spend more time at the table and less time, effort and member resources undermining AFTRA."
Despite SAG's tough talk, the guild launched the anti-AFTRA initiative with a badly split leadership, reflected in last Friday's 13-10 vote by SAG's national exec committee. And members of SAG's negotiating committee from New York and the regional branches -- who have often sided with AFTRA in past disputes -- announced a boycott of the rally.
"We cannot support anything that jeopardizes our negotiations at this very sensitive time, and that is just what this ill-advised action does," negotiating co-chairman Mike Pniewski said. "There's simply too much at stake to engage in such a divisive initiative."
New York SAG president Sam Freed, also a negotiating panel co-chair, called the event "an irresponsible embarrassment," asserting that there's no evidence that defeating the AFTRA ratification would help SAG.
But Rosenberg insisted the AFTRA deal will make it even more difficult for middle-class actors to make ends meet and pointed to the shortcomings of AFTRA's deal on product integration, online clip consent, DVD residuals, and payments for and jurisdiction over new media and mileage rates. "If you think all these things are fair, you should vote for the AFTRA deal," he added.
SAG will hold a membership meeting Wednesday night at the Harmony Gold theater in Los Angeles. For its part, AFTRA plans to hold multiple info meetings starting Thursday, and its negotiating committee chairman, Matt Kimbrough, began issuing "Lie from SAG" emails, characterizing SAG's moves as "horribly misleading" in their attempt to contrast what SAG wants with what AFTRA's achieved.
"A union has achieved nothing by virtue of what it proposes," he said. "The terms agreed to in the Exhibit A contract in Prime Time Television with the AMPTP, which was overwhelmingly ratified by the AFTRA National Board of Directors, is a very rich contract in money, representing over 4% growth in cost to the studios to performers other than stars. Major Role performers will receive a 15% raise in Major Role Minimum."
AFTRA president Roberta Reardon also took a swipe at SAG as being disconnected with reality in her most recent message to members, seeking a ratification vote. Ballots will go out in about a week, and results will be announced July 7.
"There's an old saying that politics is the art of the possible," she said. "In our view, so is collective bargaining. You need to be tough and determined, but you must also be strategic and forward-thinking. Responsible unionism is not about posturing and rhetoric but about setting firm goals, defining priorities and moving forward intelligently to achieve them. The goal of the negotiating committee was to forge an agreement that protects your rights and maximizes your opportunity to make a good living at the craft you love. The AFTRA National Board believes strongly that the primetime contract just negotiated does exactly that."
During the speeches, Rosenberg and Allen complained several times about DGA and AFTRA's terms in new media, while failing to note that the WGA's deal is nearly identical. Young alluded to that in his remarks, saying, "We hope you can make a better deal than we did and move the ball down the field."
Verrone said SAG had been more supportive of the WGA than other unions during the writers strike, adding, "During our 100-day hoedown, there was one union that stood up more and looked better than any other."
SAG and AFTRA are negotiating separately for the first time in three decades due to bitter jurisdictional disputes, culminating when AFTRA leaders asserted in March that they could no longer trust SAG leaders. The majors have indicated that they're unwilling to give SAG a significantly better deal than AFTRA received with hints that the mostly likely areas for compromise might come in actor-specific areas such as product integration and force majuere language.
Notables in attendance at Monday's rally -- first announced three days earlier -- included former SAG prexy Ed Asner, board members Justine Bateman and Anne-Marie Johnson, Joely Fisher, Kate Flannery, Marg Helgenberger, Mark Moses, Lea Thompson and Lisa Ann Walter.
(Cynthia Littleton in Hollywood contributed to this report.)
