There was no banner reading “Mission Accomplished” on the back wall on March 30th — exactly one month ago today — when the overwhelming vote in favor of the SAG-AFTRA merger was announced, but there might as well have been. Former AFTRA president John Connolly was quoted as saying, “Message f___ing delivered!” This was an especially triumphant moment for him, as he had presided over the AFTRA side of the previous merger effort that was defeated in 2003.
It was, indeed, an impressive victory, against what often seemed like overwhelming obstacles. However, it would be a significant mistake to look upon merger as somehow magically making everything wonderful. Almost all of the problems that challenged SAG and AFTRA individually before merger remain just as challenging post-merger. New ones are on the horizon.
Merger is, in fact, just the beginning of the journey . . . not the end. Now the hard work starts: The unglamorous work, the difficult work, the work that will test whether the new SAG-AFTRA has what it takes to remain viable and relevant in a media landscape that is in turmoil. It took a certain brand of statesmanship to navigate the merger process. Now we need the kind of statesmanship that will allow SAG-AFTRA to navigate the treacherous waters of being merged. Here are some things we believe are needed:
1. A Clear Vision. While no doubt many who voted for merger (and indeed many who voted against it) will probably stop paying much attention in the wake of the merger announcement, there are many others who remain both interested and concerned about the immediate direction of SAG-AFTRA. It is up to the elected leadership to articulate a vision for this coming transition year, to lay out the union’s priorities, and to set the tone for how the new organization will interface with its membership and its external constituencies. We believe this should come no later than the conclusion of the first plenary board meeting set for mid-May.
2. A New Effort at Unity. SAG-AFTRA must devote conscious attention to making sure all of its pieces are working together in harmony. There is always a tendency to fall into “us versus them” in a merger situation, whether because of geography or organizational heritage. It takes genuine effort to avoid this. Both staff and elected representatives must be alert.
3. A New Effort at Inclusiveness. SAG, in particular, has been hobbled by partisanship and cliquishness over recent years. It is important that the new SAG-AFTRA find ways to build bridges among various factions, and to bring new voices and talent into positions of responsibility. It would be a shame simply to trade one group of insular insiders for a different group of insular insiders. We need more than “the usual suspects” to make the kind of progress that is needed.
4. A New Effort at Openness. Members need to be kept up-to-date about what is happening with core issues. While there are undoubtedly matters that require confidentiality, the presumption should be in favor of sharing with members what is happening at the highest levels — both the challenges and the triumphs.
We do not wish to be misunderstood. We are not predicting doom. We are predicting success, and would like to see everything done that will help contribute to success. There is too much hard work at stake to do anything else.
As to point #2: At the Philadelphia SAG-AFTRA meeting on April 30th (the 1st S-A Membership Meeting held anywhere in the country so far), Roberta Reardon expressed the same sentiments on Point #2. She lauded the process the G1 used in its initial work in Maryland back in Summer of 2011…to listen to one another, to let go of preconceived notions or habits of doing things. Takes a lot of discipline and self-awareness to accept a new way of doing things, but it will be important for each local’s leadership to embrace that type of approach.
Obviously, one should not/cannot expect the level of communication that was brought to bear during the ratification campaign. The monetary cost and the human burn-out of leadership resources would quickly take their toll.
But there is still some valuable lessons to be learned there about the value of increased communications, and the effective tools you have at your disposal, like livestream.
Heck, there are a lot of town councils in this country that sit their mayor and a councilman in front of a local-cable access camera every month and let them talk for an hour or so about “what’s up lately” that leadership has been working on, whether that is ExComm meetings, or NB board meetings, or major committee meetings, or whatever. It works great as a communications tool (and it doesn’t have to be monthly, that was just an example). Heck, put Ned Vaughn and Matt Kimbrough at a desk with laptops (for notes and such) with a camera pointed at them and let ‘em go. They’re chatty fellas; they’ll fill the time with good information and education. Or do it every other month, and alternate who is doing it. One time it is Vaughn and Kimbrough. Another time it is Mike Hodge and Gabrielle Carteris. Now you’ve got a very sustainable model that doesn’t put too much stress on anybody in leadership and still fills the need.
Just examples. . .it can be done, and you just saw the value of doing it.
Yes. And make it a two way street. There is much to be said for open transparent leadership, and very, very little for closed rank dictatorial rule. The executive committee being made up entirely of merger-ites struck me as a very bad start. You need to answer questions, you need to be available, you need to have other opinions, voices. I was really surPrised they completely closed ranks, in a clearly punitive way, and by the way – who elected anybody? How did Ned Vaughn get to be the official with real power? This is a guy who for all his hard work gets to run the union? How about we get a little democracy going there instead off appointing , say, Vaughn number1 until well over a year from now? How did that happen? Ned? Congratulations – you’re in charge until summer 2013 – at least.
And NO ONE has really ever elected this guy to anything. That’s a fact. Is this the politburo? Or a democracy?
If it was anybody but Vaughn, SAG Hollywood would have had a conniption at the idea that anyone *other* than SAG 1st VP would fill that spot. C’mon, be honest about that. How did Ned get to the current SAG 1st VP? The same way they’ve been being elected in the past (psst, looks sorta like AFTRA convention, but apparently one isn’t supposed to notice that old SAG had some of that too).
Ned Vaughn was elected to the National Board by Hollywood voters. What’s “aspect’s” problem?
I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. And “electing Vaughn to the executive SAG-AFTRA Board?” Gee, what a surprise. He is clearly an opportunist who has been given a huge “helping hand” in those pesky “elections” – you know, actual full membership “elections.”
“Vaughn, not a full National Board member, but an alternate, resigns his alternate seat, then is appointed by Amy Brenemann, after she resigns her full national board seat. Then, they ‘elect’ Ned Vaughn 1st Vice President of SAG!
A guy who wasn’t even elected to a full National Board seat is now the 1st VP!”
Ah, those were the days. Full membership elections. Goodbye to that, and all that crazy democracy. We have concessions to make, and we brook no opposition to our concession-making-ability.
Official Tabulation Results for: Tabulation Date: 9/22/2011
SAG 2011 HOLLYWOOD DIVISION Count Mailed: 54,830
Count Returned: 10,621
Percent Returned: 19.37%
Race CandidateName Results Percent
National & Hollywood Board
TONY SHALHOUB 7,247 68.23% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
KEN HOWARD 6,994 65.85% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
ADAM ARKIN 6,501 61.21% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
AMY AQUINO 6,359 59.87% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
STEPHEN COLLINS 5,880 55.36% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
D W MOFFETT 5,697 53.64% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
SCOTT BAKULA 5,495 51.74% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
NED VAUGHN 5,486 51.65% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
MIMI COZZENS 5,234 49.28% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
ARYE GROSS 5,169 48.67% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
L SCOTT CALDWELL 5,157 48.55% National Director/ HWD Board (3 yr term)
KATE FLANNERY 4,979 46.88% National Director/ HWD Board (1 yr term)
As you can see, Ned Vaughn was elected to a three-year SAG National Board seat. I’m sorry, Matt. It was YOU that you must be thinking of who has never been elected to anything. And, for your information, Directors of the Board will CONTINUE to be elected by the FULL MEMBERSHIP of each local of SAG-AFTRA, just as they were by the membership of SAG Divisions.
A little question to the editor here: Are you going to continue to allow Matt Mulhern to post outright lies?
Yes, Aspect…those pesky elections that put you at the bottom of the list. What a pain.
Ned was elected just like all those on the new board of SAG-AFTRA….those people were actually ELECTED by the members and now steer the new union. What is the problem with that? You, like the rest of the membership, get to vote our leadership in or out next time.
This time, AMJ (who was ousted by the members to a position of power…no longer a VP…just a plain, suing board member) is not among the new leadership. You have a problem with that? Then she should run next time. Let’s face it, she won’t run..she’s got no support. She’d be too embarrassed as she’d not get a spot anywhere in the new union. The members are done with her kind. You, “Aspect” can certainly run again and once again be the last on the list. But go for it.
Easy.
Also, the transition rules mean that Ned gives up a guaranteed (under the old SAG rules) year of board service (under the old rules he would not have had to stand again until 2014). . . whereas Martin Sheen, Ed Harris, AMJ, Elliott Gould, and David Jolliffe all get an extra year of a guaranteed board seat (they would have had to stand in 2012 under the old rules). The block of defending ex-M1st would have also made it impossible for a change in board majority in 2012 as well, under the old rules. Now everything is up for grabs in 2013.
Yes, Geo – the election advantage was clearly given to the MFers.
Was David Joliffe ever elected to the National Board? He’s on it.
David Jolliffe? Never. Not once. Ever.
Dear Tom,
I had never read a comment on sagaftrawatch.com until it was pointed out to me that you had stated that David Joliffe had never been elected to the national board.
In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that in the course of two decades he has been elected to a national board seat, that he was also elected to a national vice-presidency in the 90′s, that he has been elected as a delegate to the AFTRA national convention and has been elected to seats on both the national and local boards of AFTRA, the latter as a current member.
But more in the interest of progress, now that Merger has been chosen by the joint memberships, is it not time to concentrate on making that choice work rather than allowing past partisanship to misstate facts? Should we not be pursuing an improved future rather than the polarized past? Whether Merger is the preference of all or not, that decision has been made – presumably for the better of us all – so isn’t that where our joint efforts should be directed?
How sad it would be if after a large majority of the voting members and the respective board members endorsed merger, and after the expenditure of time effort, and money to accomplish endorsement, the purpose of its passage was not fulfilled because we continued in counter-productive attacks against those with whom there is philosophical or personal disagreement.
Without suggesting that any of us be deprived of our individual opinions, can we not concentrate on making Merger a fulfillment of performers’ improved opportunities rather than a continuance of unnecessary strife?
Regardless of whether Merger is destined to work, or whether it does not become the betterment of our two joined unions, let us give the plan sufficient time to either prove itself or conclude that it is not what the majority had imagined.
Sincerely,
Paul Napier
–
Ed. Comment: The most meaningful sign that David Jolliffe and company were serious about moving forward and making the merged union work would be immediate dismissal of the Sheen v SAG litigation. As long as that lawsuit is pending, it is difficult to take seriously anything the plaintiffs who are board members might have to say.
Dear Paul
No one has been a more negatively-polarizing rabble-rousing figure in SAG politics in the past two decades than David Jolliffe. He has rarely been elected to anything. In the spirit of moving ahead, I suggest relegating him and the other reactionaries that continue to pursue nuisance lawsuits against their brothers and sisters to the ash heap of history. How sad it would be if the history of our union(s) was to be deprived of the true nature of the hateful actions of those determined to bring down the will of the majority of our members in pursuit of the most progressive action our unions ever undertook: Merger.
Mr. Napier,
Your plea for harmony and progress, now that merger has passed, would be met with agreement and joy were it not for the fact that it flies in the face of the bile and anti-progress sentiments that still persists from the anti-merger brigade. Where is your concern on the other union sites where the opposite of what you wish is de rigueur? Where is your outrage at the continuation of the Sheen lawsuit that continues to be counter-productive to the very goal you call for? Where is your castigation of those on Sagactor who continue to denigrate the merger?
I find your call for progress disingenuous at best, but mostly laughable. The usual suspects have made it clear they will continue to thwart the will of the membership at every turn. And yet you find defending Joliffe, who of late has been thoroughly rejected by the membership but may have, in the past, had some board success, a reason to finally call for unity. Really?
Dear Paul:
It is a fact, is it not that Mr. Joliffe was appointed to a board seat several times, even though he was a very low vote getter? If in the dark ages, Mr. Joliffe was indeed elected (maybe so…which decade was that?) it doesn’t give him a pass to lead when he can’t get elected during the past several years.
Oh, and if they are really serious (which I doubt) about wanting to be in the leadership of our new union, then tell ‘em to drop the lawsuit that will do NOTHING but once again cost the MEMBERS hard earned dues money.
Otherwise, and unless they do, they have no standing in my opinion. None whatsoever. And will not be trusted for the next several years. To me, they purposely tried to STOP the democratic process, the vote of the members. They failed miserably at each and every turn, at each and every frivilous lawsuit.
They are done in union leadership, because they won’t drop it, they didn’t drop the last one after countless courts saw their suit meritless. Then after all that, is it true that they actually sent someone to ask SAG to pay the legal fees they stacked up by suing SAG? Ask them, Paul. See if they tell you the truth. Then let us know.
I’m so glad the media posted all the names of these people. The members should know what they are made of.
Mud comes to mind.
Wasn’t Jolliffe 1st VP at one point? Not even that time?
Oh, and for NDM, Jolliffe currently has the seat that Ed Asner was elected to in 2009. So it was in its last year anyway (tho if it hadn’t been, Jolliffe would have still been required to run again in 2012, under the old rules). The old rules allowed Asner to hand-pick Jolliffe for the seat, and then the transition rules gave him a free extra year. He was a candidate in 2011, failing of election to both NB and HB.
The new 2013 rules are a little more democratic in that it limits appointees to open seats to delegates elected by the membership, which gives at least some legitimacy. I expect someone like David Jolliffe, who does have a loyal, if apparentely small, band of supporters, to benefit from convention/delegates rules in the new constitution. Funny, eh?
Wait, wait, wait.
Are you guys saying that Matt is crying that Ned Vaughn wasn’t even elected to the NB, when in fact he was, and that Matt has never, not ever, bitched and moaned about David Joliffe being put on the NB by his MF cronies time and time again, even though Joliffe has never been elected?
What’s the word I’m looking for … ?
GEO: “Wasn’t Jolliffe 1st VP at one point? Not even that time?”
Not to my knowledge. The point is: when Mattie-boy scores Ned Vaughn for having been appointed to a National Board seat ONCE (and who then proceeded to be elected to a National Board seat), he takes care to ignore the bevy of MF appointees, including Jolliffe, d’Angerio, and DiSantis, who often weren’t even in the running for an alternate seat.
at least vaughn was elected by the membership far more times than Joliffe and company.
Matt hasn’t been even close to being elected to seat in NY and has never tried to serve on a committee.
Hmmm…there is something rotten in Denmark and Queens.
Oh, I absolutely agree with the larger point, Tom. Lord knows that partially defending David Jolliffe wasn’t what I expected to find myself doing when I got out of bed this morning. I’ve lost track of the number of times he’s been appointed to NB just in the last five years. 3? 4?
Having said that, Kent McCord’s website reports Jolliffe as a former VP of SAG. Tho it doesn’t say when. . .maybe it was two governance changes ago (in which case I don’t know what the rules were then, as I’ve never seen that constitution).
Make that “. . .partially defending the democratic credentials of David Jolliffe. . . “. I’m not inviting a larger discussion of the wisdom of his being repeatedly rejected by the electorate in recent years.
Geo said, “I’m not inviting a larger discussion of the wisdom of his being repeatedly rejected by the electorate”
Why not? seems appropriate given Matspect’s posts. Joliffe was “appointed” when others could not perform duties. He was REJECTED by the membership vote, and instead of going to the next largest vote getter, the Hollywood board allows the board to appoint a person or to be exact, the winner gets to appoint the “replacement” or “understudy”.
Really? so the vote doesn’t matter?
Hollywood has used this tactic over and over and over especially with Daivd Jolliffe.
Shameful. Thank God we have a new union with new rules.
Of course our little “one whose name shall not be mentioned” will spin and spew til the cows com home about anything SAG-AFTRA no matter how good.
You people have work to do. So far? Zip. When you have accomplished anything of note, let us all know.
You and yours have SAG-AFTRA!
And, so what? Only now do you get to start proving to everyone what a great move it was.
Attaining merger, was the highpoint. It is all downhill from here.
SAG-AFTRA! Yay!!!!!!!!!
More work? No. More money? No. Overhaul new media for a fair deal, which would have been done if you had shown spine in 2008. No. Really, really hard to do, and requiring at least the threat of a strike (you wouldn’t allow that. Too radical).
A better P&H system than SAG had. No.
So, what are you all worked up about? What is the” list of three things SAG-AFTRA is going to accomplish in its first year!”
Besides the new name.
Sue Schruman, the Rutgers Labor Professor who oversaw G1, said “the transition would take 5 years if everything is done exactly right.”
I wish you the best. Boy, are you going to need it.
Gee Matt, didn’t you get the invite to the face to face meeting? Didn’t you get the call about what the next steps will be? Didn’t anyone invite you to weigh in on the work being done right now?
Hmmm, wonder why? Oh that’s right…because you aren’t involved. And AMJ isn’t involved so she can’t send you any info because…wait for it…SHE DOESN’T KNOW.
We merged a little over a month ago and you want to see changes in contracts NOW…well, I guess I can understand since you have no grasp on such lofty things as hard work.
Sorry you aren’t getting work or haven’t gotten any work. What’s that got to do with the union? You can blame the weather if you want, but it may be more productive to look in the mirror and ask yourself what you did to contribute to the problem instead of placing the entire world in the villian seat in your head.
The thing is, Matt, you don’t wish anyone “the best.” Don’t you read what you write on sagactor? That’s why YOU don’t have the best or even much of anything at all for yourself. No work for you? Others seem to get hired. Even me. You’ve been on a downhill path for so long you think everyone and everything – including the union – is with you on that downhill slide. Not so. Long run? P&H will improve, salaries will rise, opportunities will increase,
And just to add – the work done so far? What makes you think it’s been “zip?” You wouldn’t know. There has been a lot accomplished, just not splashy headline stuff. Hard work, Matt – the kind that gets done by those who serve the members of the union. Not those like yourself who continue to stand on the sidelines and throw stones.
I agree with Ken Howard –there are no external circumstances (the US or world economy, whatever) where the two benefits plans together don’t do better together than apart. But that is a big caveat –we live in a very anus-clinching time meta-economically for the next few years. Lots of “political risk” and “headline risk”.
But as I’ve said before, there are some good stuff going as well. I hear SAG-PPHP’s pension plan is certified once again to be “Green” and that the percentage has improved once again over last year. Hello, Paul Edney. . . .
Why is it improving? Not just the market, folks. Trustees are *trying* to build reserves. And that gives you at least some flexibility in the short term, and probably even more flexibility in the mid-term. . .if the entire economic system doesn’t go ker-plunk.