Bruce Dow, the current CEO of the SAG-Producers Pension & Health Plans and a 28-year employee of the plans, resigned today. Dow had been on medical leave since January, and has been accused of wrongdoing by former employee Craig Simmons. The trustees engaged outside counsel to investigate the allegations and announced in December that the allegations were generally baseless.
Reports from the Los Angeles Times, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety.
–Update-
Statement from the Trustees:
It is with regret that we accept our CEO Bruce Dow’s decision to resign from employment with the Plans. For the last 28 years, Bruce has been instrumental in assisting the Trustees in designing and managing many of the benefit programs actors enjoy today. His ideas and innovation over the years have produced substantial savings for the Plans and excellent benefits for Plan participants. We greatly appreciate the work that Bruce has done for the Plans and are pleased to announce that Bruce will serve as a Consultant to the Plans.
The Board of Trustees has appointed Chris Dowdell as the Interim CEO. Chris is currently the Plans’ Chief Operating Officer and has been with the Plans for over 20 years. The Board looks forward to working with Chris in his new capacity.
Have you considered the possibility that you are now going to have to deal with the reality that the Craig Simmons case and Dow’s “retirement” are inextricably linked?
That David White and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, former SAG NED and co-NED and general counsel – also SAG trustees, a serious conflict of interest, knew that doing a pre-merger actuarial study would have exposed the serious problems at SAG PPHP, and therefore, made sure one was not done, since it would have forestalled merger?
One wonders, having achieved merger, how many chickens will now be visiting home to roost. the underlying financial s will not change, and if it is determined there is a connection, and that connection, had it been known, would have stopped merger, one can’t say what will happen, but, certainly it will be a substantially marred legacy for the merger.
Will you at least agree this has quite serious implications if Simmons proves in court what he purports in his allegations?
Did it occur to you that Dow’s resignation may have nothing to do with the Simmons case? Afterall, Dow was on 3-month medical leave, and therein may lie the reason.
No allegation that Simmons has made in writing in public is “material” to the trusts overall financial condition. I don’t know what he said in those anti-merger informationals he was invited to attend and addressed verbally, but none of the written allegations (which top out at $10M) are material.
Now, by “not material”, I do not mean that they shouldn’t be addressed by changes in staff and procedures at PPHP, if true. I just mean their impact on the financial condition of the trusts. That’s a big ship. Nobody likes to lose $10M unnecessarily (nor should they), but it’s simply not a big number in the context of the trusts –something less than 1/2 of 1 percent.
Yes, there are a few voices that are insisting the problem is much larger, but if you say what *Simmons* has said in writing, then you’re at $10M, or have the burden of showing where Simmons has said in writing it is more. Given the context of Simmons suit will be Simmons actions and allegations, it is hard to see how anything more than that will come out of it, if anything comes out of it at all.
Btw, shouldn’t the annual funding condition letter be out around now?
The “medical leave” and the “resignation” while being kept on as a well-paid “consultant, is indicative of grounds for suspicion. If you think both are a coincidence, you are entitled to that view. It is not a view that, among others, is shared by Craig Simmons, or his attorneys.
The point is “is there any connection between not doing the actuarial study, and an understanding by two top merger forces, David White and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, in their concurrent positions as SAG P&HG trustees?”
Again, common sense would suggest the answer is obvious. Or one can decide it is merely a coincidence and neither knew, or had any reason to know, there was trouble at SAG P&H.
Personally, I find that hard to believe. The Simmons case should be illuminating. A relatively small amount of fraud, that in no way drove the decision, supported by White and DCI, not to do a study of the SAG P&H plan and the possible problems trying to merge it with the AFTRA H&R plan would result in.
Or a conscious decision to avoid at all costs a study of actual numbers which would have illuminated a SAG P&H program in substantial disarray. That is the end of merger, if that is the conclusion.
It was the conclusion of Robert Carlson, who was summarily dismissed the next day by the Hollywood National Board, led by Ned Vaughn. Why would Carlson speak out so forcefully ( a “staggering burden”) if he knew he was overstating the problem?
Why would he say that, knowing there would be consequences? And there were. Why? What was the upside for Robert Carlson?
The post referendum world opens the door to truly examining the issues that were muzzled by the steamroller of merger, paid for with five million dollars of dues-payers money, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees to ward off any legal objections.
And the question is rapidly shifting to the ability of SAG-AFTRa to truly deliver what it purported to be so necessary as a mans to justify its creation. Well, the examination of SAG P&H is just the beginning. Now, the merger-ites are the fall-guys. No one to blame anymore. time to take full responsibility for what they’ve done, and how they went about doing it.
Carlson’s reference to “a staggering financial burden” was specific to solving the “split earnings” problem.
There are a few problems with Carlson on that point, but the most obvious one is that he himself acknowledged previously in his declaration that no study had been done, in order to attack statements that SAG’s experts had offered. . . and then turns right around and makes an even bolder statement himself (“a staggering financial burden”) also without study results to support it.
Sorry, but Carlson, nor his admirers, get to have it both ways on that point. Carlson doesn’t have study results either to back up his forcefully made contention on that point.
Personally, I suspect. . .but don’t have numbers either. . .that the actual number of actors impacted by the “split earnings” problem is probably substantially less than the number of actors who were legitimately afraid that it could impact them, and perhaps took specific jobs here and there so as to avoid being impacted by it.
No, I didn’t say nobody was actually impacted. I’m saying that when an actual study is done it could show that in the grand scheme of some very big numbers that solving that won’t have all that much impact on the financials. It is, after all, pretty common practice, particularly with unions who have locals with their own pension plans (like say the Teamsters).
Besides, do you realize what would have happened if the anti-merger folks had achieved their actual dream of destroying AFTRA and claiming all actor jurisdiction for SAG? All those “split earnings” actors would have come, unsplit, to SAG’s plan only for future work, at higher pension accrual rates than AFTRAs. . . if you believe Carlson that solving “split earnings” is an apocalypse to be avoided, then you still would have had your “staggering financial burden”, but even worse, and all on SAG-PPHP.
However, more positively, you have some other things going for you right now on that point. The P&H contribution was just increased by 10%; that will have long-term impact that will give you more flexibility over time. Both old plans are also in “rebuild” mode on their pension reserves to get *comfortably* over the 80% “green” threshhold. Consider what that means, because it is important. It means that both plans are as a matter of policy currently taking in more than they need to service current liabilities if they were already at an acceptable long-term funding percentage (which they aren’t, but it is still an important point for the longer term). That also provides some degree of flexibility, possibly in a small way immediately, but in a larger way in the mid-term.
Lord willin’, and the Israelis don’t attack Iran, Spain and Italy defaults, etc.
All that would be fine if it resembled reality, but alas, it is not to be. I’d say more “protecting SAG” than “killing AFTRA.” It was AFTRA, with the help of internal SAG forces that killed SAG, in case you are confused.
The fall-out for AFTRA H&R recipients if SAG had all screen actors under its roof, would be the inevitable result of the correct reaction of SAG in protecting its rightful jurisdiction.
You don’t blame the country being invaded if they fight back and the country that was hostile sustains some damage in return. That is a truly odd version of the natural order of things.
And the Simmons case is going to illuminate some very inconvenient truths for the “winners” that the “losers” – screen actors – are going to have some serious questions about, such as “why didn’t we know this before we voted?”
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Ed. Comment: The dead horse of “SAG’s rightful jurisdiction” has been beaten to a bloody pulp at this point, and is now moot after the merger. Let’s move on.
You’re still missing it, Aspect. Finger pointing and semantics don’t matter to math. However you describe it, if all those actors are unsplit in SAG-PPHP, then Carlson’s hypothesized “staggering financial burden” comes to pass anyway, just on SAG-PPHP alone (which, btw, is less well funded than AFTRA H&R, and if *your* theories are correct, even much more so than we know! Ouch!).
If you believe in this ghost story, which is yet unproven, as Carlson acknowledged himself when he blasted SAG’s pension experts.
Aspect: The Dow/Simmons circus would have had ABSOLUTELY NO effect on the merger vote. Not one little bit. It would have been bandied about by you and your againsters, but seeing you guys couldn’t fill a room…how would it have changed the overwhelming approval of merger? You’re “what if’s?” don’t hold water.
You’re using an old song that is out of tune and rusty.
And, Aspect, what happens for you when there is the final revelations regarding Simmons/ Dow that there is no there there and realize that all of your presumptions have no basis near reality? Hm?
Well, we all know whose “aspect” this is, don’t we? Over the past few years, not one of his dire predictions of doom have come true and not one of his accusations or allegations has been proven, and not once has he uttered the words “Gee – I was wrong. Sorry.”
The thing I don’t understand about the againsters point is—
If no study was done because the SAG plan was in such terrible state–then they should have been FOR merger.
SAG plans in terrible state–no merger–SAG plans still in terrible state.
SAG plans in terrible state–merger—the “smarter” AFTRA trustees take over the SAG plan and now the SAG plan and AFTRA plan (soon to be one plan) are in better shape.
Why vote against something that would keep the people you say are doing it wrong in power??? I just didn’t get it and I still don’t.
Lucky it really doesn’t matter because we are ONE union and soon will be ONE plan.
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Ed. Comment: Don’t confuse people with facts and logic.
Let’s move on as Editor suggests. See ya Matspect
Why would you, two SAG trustees, who, in a massive conflict of interest, (No? How do you figure that?) also two top staff proponents of merger, within SAG, David White and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, not do a pre-merge actuarial study, unless you knew there were serious problems that, if brought to light, would have forestalled and probably ended a merger bid?
Why would you make the conscious decision not to give the membership all the information you could about the health of the plan and the best estimates of crunching real numbers, of what the landscape looked like?
Why would you not do that?
Explain that to me. What is the downside, or no information, actuarially, not a bunch of lawyers saying it’s technically legal to merge the plans, but number crunching, to the membership, of doing that study?
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Ed. Comment: We suggest you read the Ethan Kra declaration for answers. And stop making groundless accusations.
“aspect” writes:
“Why would you, two SAG trustees, who, in a massive conflict of interest,….”
Who are the “two SAG trustees”????
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and David White. The fact you don’t know that is telling. And appalling.
Are there two people more central to the merger, who knew more about the actual state of SAG P&H, than anyone else, on SAG staff? Let me answer that for you. No.
That is a huge conflict of interest. Do you need me to explain how? Baseless allegations? What allegations? The two most central to merger SAG staff were also two SAG trustees. Case closed. They should have been one or the other. Both? Not good, not ethical, not right in any real world decision of any other business. Do you think that conflict of interest had anything to do with their mutual decision not to do a pre-merger actuarial study?
Let me answer that for you. Yes, of course it did.
“Merger” is really a myth in what it meant to you. Now, you have to make real change. As I’ve said, you have to achieve a fair deal in new media. No time like the next negotiation. I f you don’t? you will have failed. Plan to get any concession from 2008 back? Product placement protections, clip consent, force majeure. No? You will have failed.
Plan to keep the plans separate for how long? Years? Continue “split earnings for years? Then you will have failed. What tangible evidence do you have it will not take years.Official statements from the trustees? Or is it just opinion? Plan to merge them with a drop in benefits for SAG pension holders? How else will you merge them? One has a fund of 2.7 billion, SAG, the other around 1.7 billion, AFTRA. Then you will have failed.
Plan to stop the spread of non-union work? How? No? Then you will have failed. How will you stop it? Will a judge look at an actor suing SAG-AFTRA for punitive punishment threatened by SAG-AFTRA for doing non-union work and not say, “well, you do not have a union that enforces union-only work, so, no, you simply cannot hold an actor accountable in doing what broadcasters do and what actors in the previous AFTRA did.”
Do you think a court will uphold a “Global Rule One” rule, if broken by actors? Let me answer that for you. No, they will not.
Do you think SAG-AFTRA is going to be willing, let alone able, to strike for the new media deal it simply must have? Let me answer that for you. No, it will not.
Which will mean your “mythical” – “strength in numbers,” “all of us or none of us,” “new union for a new world,” will turn out to be the sham it was clearly designed to be – a producer friendly joke, that gets its hands around a combined 5 billion dollars in pension money.
Do you want to go out on a limb and tell us what you think will be accomplished that will justify what just happened? Because, I think you’ll have to admit, you have to come through with something really, really big to justify what you just did, don’t you?
And soon. Otherwise, why did we do it?
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Ed. Comment: The preceding is posted even though it is becoming tiresome.
My advice for “aspect” is to take care to not get ensnared by the very noose that he keeps attempting to throw over the tree branch for Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and David White.
It would behoove all involved to look seriously into SAG P&H’s books. I used to work there and [remainder of comment deleted].
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Ed. Comment: We simply are not prepared to post anonymous, unverified accusations of problems or wrongdoing, especially with the history of certain past posters here. If this person has legitimate concerns, there are avenues available for pursuing them. This is not the place.
Ed, you have these random comments that aren’t appropiate either. How is there going to be a website inviting people to make comments and then you decide to either remove them or delete portions with a ridiculous comment from you. It seems like you’re one of those radio DJ’s who gets to decide when people can talk. You can keep this website to yourself, I’m outta here!!!
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Ed. Comment: Our posting policy states: “Things we don’t post in comments: . . . Things that we think might be libelous or which accuse someone of a crime.”
To: Would rather not leave a name:
So, start your own blog. Over on the playground SAGAct– comments are removed, people are bounced for just disagreeing.
Take it to the “Mat,” Mr/Ms. Would rather not! Start your own friggin blog!! How hard is that? Let us know how that works out for ya.