Sharon Waxman’s post at the Wrap says NBC-U’s new boss thinks the movie business is going from worse to a lot worse.
SAG-AFTRA WATCH
News and Information About the New SAG-AFTRA
Sharon Waxman’s post at the Wrap says NBC-U’s new boss thinks the movie business is going from worse to a lot worse.
And where do you think it’s going? New Media.
And what is SAG-AFTRA’s deal in new media? “No minumums and free windows leading to the possible end of residuals.”
This merger, now that you got your wish, will show benefits for the Producers or for the rank and file of SAG-AFTRA. Real, tangible, measurable, benefits, from all the rhetoric we heard: “”Strength in numbers!” “Behind the mic or in front of the camera!” “all of us or none of us!” “A new union for a new world!” “We can’t be divided!”
If SAG-AFTRA doesn’t get busy and make things markedly better, in new media specifically, which means a complete overhaul of new media? They will have reneged on their promise to all of us that if we merged we’d be stronger.
If non-unionism spreads? They will have been proven wrong.
If the pension programs turn into a chaotic mess that can’t be resolved for years, and only then into a plan that severely hurts one previous plan’s beneficiaries (SAG), they will have failed.
Nobody is qualifying for P&H now, that isn’t under the exact same conditions that existed before we merged. And they won’t be for a long time. Years, probably. And then the plan will probably be substantially more expensive with lower benefits.
SAG-AFTRA has no excuses now. Make things better. Much better, soon. Or why did we do this?
If things are that bleak, why don’t you just go into another business since you are so clear you will never be able to make any money in it.
nodramame
I have already made more money in screen acting than you ever have, or will. I would like a union that allowed me and my subsequent screen actors to do the same.
SAG-AFTRA aint it. It is a corporate appeaser and that is a dead end for progressive work wages, P&H – you name it – for the screen actor from here on out, unless actors get fed up – this time for the right reasons – and throw you out.
Platitudes won’t do anymore. complaints won’t do anymore. Snarky replies won’t do anymore.
In case you haven’t noticed unions include 6% of the workers in this country. It used to be 36%. You show me one tangible improvement from SAG-AFTRA moving forward from here, no more of the tried arguments for merger as you would describe the tired arguments against it. Now, YOU have to deliver. SAG-AFTRA has to deliver: no status quo, go along to get along agreements with the producers, but BIG change: new media being the most important, by far.
An accomplishment that outclasses what Screen Actors had with the representation of SAG.
Now we see if your theory “bigger is better” was right. or very, very mistaken. I know where my bet is placed. Now it’s on you to prove us wrong. and quick. with leadership comes responsibility. It’s ALL on SAG-AFTRA now, and the executive leadership contains no, as in zero, anti-mergerites.
So step up, big man. You said you could, you said it was a no brainer, you said you would. so, do it.
One HUGE accomplishment. A percentage deal we can negotiate forward from in new media: “percentage of what, how much, how do we track it, etc.” We got P&H in 1960. SAG got us residuals, which allowed a middle class of rank and file actors to exist. Something like that. BIG. HUGE. A HUGE raise in minimums if they make it clear you’ll have to strike (and you won’t because we know you wont.)
We’ll be waiting. No excuses now. I HAD a profession. YOU killed it. so, prove me wrong. Cause i WAS doing quite well, the actors who used to have careers where they weren’t fighting for every scrap, we doing fairly well, then the line in the sand came: new media, you know and I know we had to get it right, right away. You rallied the membership, misinformed, inattentive, and not making money anyway, and they voted for “change!”
You made the regions think things would get markedly better. That’s how you swindled their vote. So, make that happen. It won’t, and you know it. More work? No, and you know it. “Split earnings?” Yup, for the foreseeable future.
So, go ahead, “change” things, for the better. Make sure the SAG beneficiaries don’t lose a dime of the benefits they earned, while you, nodramame, were agitating to give the union away. Pull that off, without a benefit drop.
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Ed. Comment: The above is posted with some trepidation because it illustrates several things.
First, we see an example of someone who is the very antithesis of what SAG-AFTRA needs in order to succeed. This is someone dedicated to failure, and itching to do everything possible to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. After predicting doom for so long, it becomes impossible to move forward in a constructive manner. This we don’t need, especially when a mere 30 days have elapsed since merger was approved.
Second, we have here someone who is still stuck in 2007. It is time to move forward.
Finally, we simply will not tolerate the personal attacks and “I have more credits than you” nonsense. We know who this poster is, and he is one post away from being banned again if he doesn’t behave.
Hiroo? Hiroo Anoda? Nice that he’s interneting these days.
We know who he is?
He knows who you are.
We’re even. Sort of. “Dedicated to failure?” “Failure” means me too. I am not dedicated to my own failure. I’m now on the “cut to the chase” side of this equation. You people spent 4 years tearing down, slandering, demeaning, dismissing, vilifying. So, grow some thick skin. You’re going to need it.
How, possibly, could you extrapolate that, from what I have rallied for – more success, more opportunity, the knowledge the union would back you up, not give you away, not when it means, well, the union. You know, the one we just “gave away?”
This is a business. A business. The union part of it? Is about “workers” and “employers” doing “business.” It was done remarkably well for 80 years. Tough decisions? Winners and losers? You bet – Mickey Rooney still wants to dig up Ronald Reagan so he can kill him again. You think I’m kidding? Ask him. He’ll tell you himself.
It is not about empowering artists to create art. It is about enabling artists, which you can legitimately call many members of SAG-AFTRA, to have a baseline set of protections, because artists will, especially when they are young, work for free. Just to make their art.
The job of the union is to bring them under a protective wing, because they end up getting work as an actor in a signatory production, and, especially when they are young, watching their backs in a very “we’re here, but we’re not here” kind of way. And the very, very small percent of them who survive as working actors beyond, say, 35, will begin to pay attention to having earned certain things, certain things that they then want protected at all costs.
Pro-merger people were filled with multitudes of very vocal members who have not qualified for health and pension, and never will. That is not a desire or a wish for others failure in professional acting. It is a fact. You know it. I know it.
“Moving on” Is simply something you will have to forget about, at least until you prove you have gained something by doing what you did, instead of giving things away. You will be judged, and rightly so. You not only asked for it, you took it, you insisted on it, you convinced a large majority to vote for it.
I believe the vast majority of those who voted “yes” aren’t even aware of what they voted for. I would bet you 90 to 95% of the membership did not read the referendum package. I did not read the referendum package. Parts of it? Sure. But I knew and know what I need to know, and others filled me in on the rest. And, please save the faux outrage. It’s honest. I bet a lot of your top dogs didn’t read the damn thing in its totality either.
It was, don’t kid yourselves, like the Fidelity Mutual Funds Monthly Prospectus that you throw in the trash, because you want to read it as much as “Ulysses” – you know it’s a good thing to do, but you would rather put rat poison on your Cheerios.
You now face a phalanx of killer sharks. They don’t care that you are 160,000, not 120,000. They couldn’t care less. They see that the previous regime was crushed when it tried to convince the membership and the board that new media was not to be fooled with, that, even if it took a strike at the height of the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and even if it took a strike on the heels of the Writers strike, it had to be done. A deal that laid a template to move forward in a responsible, do-able way, needed to be established. It was a must have.
We don’t have it. You simply cannot argue, responsibly that you can negotiate forward in new media from no minimums and free windows headed to the end of residuals. It will take a complete overhaul. You know it. I know it. And the producers will say “no.”
What will you do then? Will you even ask for it? And if you do and they say “no” – which they will, will you strike to get it? In which case, why wouldn’t you when we could have gotten that deep unpleasantness over with. We’ll never know if the producers would have changes their tune, not wanting to face another killer strike to “o.k., o.k., we’ll work out some sort of percentage deal,” because you never supported the decision to even allow negotiators to enter the room with a strike authorization and any realistic understanding that the unions were yelling at each other rather, than unifying for this “must have.” It was the personification of what not to do in a crunch time negotiation.
The producers made it imminently clear in 2007 they wanted to reshape the entire landscape of how actors get paid. They went BIG. You have to give them that. And they won BIG. But they never faced any opposition. None.
Less. Less, far less, is the operative phrase. You made the argument, again, to a largely ill-informed, inattentive, and apathetic (it’s hard to pay attention to the “deep” concerns of “your union” when you make less than 5,000 dollars a year, as over 75% of screen actors do, and did).
And to see that effort led by many, many people who are not working actors and therefore have absolutely no idea what really matters to working actors, was surreal.
So, give us a a heads up, Please. Do you really think SAG-AFTRA will strike over anything? Honestly? Do you think SAG-AFTRA is actually going to make things tangibly better for all those votes from the regions you so assiduously courted? Really? How? Chance are, you’d have to agree, even if a third plan is funded, it will inevitably have higher earned income requirements, larger co-pays, out of pocket, premiums, and less benefits. You, if you have any interest in honesty, have to know that.
What do you expect to accomplish? Short term? Long term? Be serious. Be bold. Don’t go sheepish now. “It won’t be easy, we all have to blah, blah blah…” Wrong. You HAVE to blah, blah, blah…” because YOU fought for it. YOU raged for it.
So, give us a taste of what you are going to DO with it and how.
I mean, the suits said they planned to kill residuals in 2007. By name. In the NY Times! That was pretty bold, I think you’ll agree. And they’ve already made very positive (for them) strides in that direction. How much has been lost to new media reuse? Millions and millions in just, oh, 5 years or so?
And they predicted they’d do it in the NY Times! So, can you come up with a list here on sagaftrawatch.net. You’re not nobodies. You’re all recognizable names in the merger movement. You demanded answers – specific answers from candidates, from anti-merger advocates all throughout this 5 years process to “WE ARE ONE!”
So, now we’re”one.”
What are you going to be willing to predict you’ll accomplish that makes this worth the destruction of SAG?
Is it too much to ask for an answer to that?
For the love of God, do we have to endure this…AGAIN???
Admin, please pull the plug so we can get on with real discussions with real performing artists.
You don’t have to “endure” anything. [Deletion] There’s a reason the post was left up. It’s legitimate and it asks legitimate questions. So, be quiet, answer them, or go away. That seems like a fair set of choices. Easy.
Matspect writes: “So, be quiet, answer them, or go away. That seems like a fair set of choices. Easy.”
What is “easy” is seeing that the membership voted overwhelmingly for this merger. What’s “easy” is seeing that you and your buds are irrelevant when it comes to having a clue about what members want or need. What is “easy” is knowing that nobody is “going away” or being “quiet” or doing anything barked out by the sideliners. What is “easy” is seeing that there isn’t one “legitimate” or realistic, or compelling question in the post of which you speak.
Now THAT’S “easy”.
“Aspect” has already stated on another website that he is not willing to work (or even hope or pray) for the success of SAG-AFTRA, and that he intends to undermine it wherever he can and laugh, laugh, laugh at the failure he has foreseen. Well – at least his cards are on the table and most of the membership knows who not to give any credence. As for who has spent four years tearing down, slandering, demeaning, dismissing and vilifying merger and those in favor of it – we all know who did that, don’t we? And I daresay he is the one who will need to grow some thick skin in the coming months. He’s going to need it.
By the way, Admin? Already having to delete this guy…twice so far.
Just sayin.
“Chicago Tribune
Allen and Rosenberg have argued that they need a strike authorization vote from members to give them leverage in negotiations with the studios. The guild is sharply at odds with the producers over how actors should be compensated in the digital era.”
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How’s that goin?
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“Recently, a document entitled “Feasibility Review” was posted on the SAG and AFTRA websites and purported to discuss the feasibility of a merger of the AFTRA and SAG health and pension plans. This document contained the opinion of various lawyers stating, among other things, that there are no legal impediments to merging the plans. Included among the legal opinions was one from co-counsel to the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds, Jani Rachelson.The Board of Trustees of the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds wishes to make it absolutely clear that the opinions expressed in this “Feasibility Review” in no way represent the opinion of AFTRA H&R’s Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees did not request or authorize this opinion of Fund co-counsel and had no prior knowledge of this letter before reading the posting on the websites.Although there is no doubt that plan mergers are legally permissible in appropriate circumstances, the merger of pension and health funds as large and divergent as the AFTRA and SAG plans raises complex and unique financial, legal and benefit issues which can only be addressed through a comprehensive analysis performed by the funds.
No position has been, or will be, taken by the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds Trustees or its co-counsel until such time as a comprehensive feasibility study is performed.”
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How’s that goin?
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“And we find it very interesting that there are trustees on the SAG employee side who are also key players on the merger team. There is Richard Masur (key G1 architect of the new unions’ constitution and a anti unionist), Duncan Cratree-Ireland (SAG in-house legal counsel on the G1 committee and professional flip flopper), John T. McGuire (SAG senior advisor, consummate liar and merger zombie/AFTRA lover), and the one and only SAG National Director David White.
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Was that a conflict of interest? No? How? I wonder if that inlfiuenced the decision not to do the study the AFTRA trustees and Robert Carlson, the SAG trustee, all thought should be step one.
How’s that goin?
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“Last week, in a post on this site, titled See No Evil, Hear No Evil…., the SAG Pension and Health Trustees were asked a very valid and timely question. Why are you remaining silent, unlike the AFTRA Trustees, regarding the”Feasibility Review” posted on the Union websites? The AFTRA Trustees were absolutely correct in saying ”…..the merger of pension and health funds as large and divergent as the AFTRA and SAG plans raises complex and unique financial, legal and benefit issues which can only be addressed through a comprehensive analysis performed by the funds.” In other words, you’ve got to get some actuaries on the job and it won’t be easy.
SAG’s merger document position that “…….merging the unions and the Plans would only benefit plan participants” and …..merger is the best way to protect our benefits” is patently untrue. So why are the SAG Trustees silent? Are they simply ignoring the issue? I think it’s more complex than that. The Trustees are in the middle of trying to figure out what to do about their longtime CEO, who has been accused by a fired Plan employee of a variety of illegal or improper acts on the job. This has consumed Trustees’ time and energy, but they could have dealt with the Feasibility Review issue if there were a collective will to do so. There is not. The producer Trustees appear to be disinclined to meddle in a Union election. The Guild Trustees, with the exception of a very few, in my opinion, are so dedicated to accomplishing the MERGER that they are willing to ignore the truth.
Several Trustees, named in the See No Evil post, were members of or advisors to the G1 committee. Several of the AFTRA Trustees, who had no part in generating the “feasibility” letters from attorneys, were G1 members also, but they took the high road and showed the determination to be truthful with their members. I think the majority of my fellow SAG Trustees have painted themselves into a corner. The voters have been promised by SAG that merger of the Plans can only be a benefit. If and when that does not happen, Plan participants and SAG members (who are always striving to be covered) will have only the Trustees to look to for answers. ”What happened to our benefits? We were promised that everything would be better.”
Robert Carlson, SAG Pension and Health Trustee
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How’s that goin?
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Carlson asserted in the declaration that if the plans were to be merged, they would then be required to pay out more benefits without accruing additional income. “This is a staggering financial burden which the plans cannot endure without either lowering benefits, increasing the qualification threshold or infusing additional funding into the plan,” Carlson said at the time. “The financial burden that would result if the split earnings problem is ‘solved’ does not currently exist. This transparent outcome has been concealed from SAG members.”
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How’s that goin?
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You know Tom, your “I’m rubber, you’re glue,” style, when you have nothing to say is not going to cut it anymore.
So: “Strength in numbers” – what’s the difference if you don’t threaten to, or, if absolutely necessary, strike?
P&H: both sets of trustees seem not to have been, to put it mildly, enamored of the prospect of merging the plans. It’s right there (above) in writing.
So, explain to me, seriously, what did we gain? We lost SAG, but, what did we gain?
I mean, give me something here, cause i see nothing. Less democracy – you disagree? How can you possibly disagree? That’s a statement of fact.
Much more bureaucracy. TWICE the staff. So, no streamlining. that, again, is fact.
I mean, What have we GAINED in opposition to what we clearly lost? These are just a little taste of things you will be addressing, by necessity, in the days, weeks, months ahead, so, rather than calling me a pessimist, or a troublemaker, or whatever, why not demonstrate your inclusiveness, everybody is not impressed and joyful and we’re members too, and I actually quote THE trustees and other people, not myself, so, why not start now, by giving some of this a thoughtful response??
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Ed. Comment: Imagine what would happen if all of this energy devoted to doom, gloom, and living in the past were actually devoted to something constructive?
He used to devote that kind of energy to acting.
No great shakes, but competent.
Then something happened.
Aspect: blah blah blah ancient history, done, toast, merger has been mandated by the membership…you know, democracy? You know UNION VOTING. You know, the will of the people. You, however can’t accept the will of the people.
How’s that goin?
You mean the will of the sheeple. Uninformed packs engaged in group think tend to make bad decisions. Really bad decisions.
Right Matt…tens of thousands of MEMBERS who voted and chose merger are alllll “sheep”? They are alllll uninformed? They voted overwhelmingly for merger despite the lies thrown out there by your buds. Here’s the truth: tens of thousands of members saw through it all.
Your post speaks volumes about how you blame the entire world for something and you take no blame…maybe you had it wrong. Tens of thousands voted to save our unions. You, on the other hand have no choice but to label the entire membership as uninformed? That makes sense to you? That’s an “argument” for losing so very baddly?
Amazing that you can actually write such things and nothing seems amiss. Nothing seems a bit out of touch in your assessment?
Again proof that the members had it right all along.
Name one thing that improves under merger. One thing.
I’ll name five things that get appreciably worse.
Landslide elections are nice.
Matt I’ll name more than one:
1) Producers can no longer play two unions against each other
2) (a bread and butter issue) Dues went DOWN for all double card holders
3) There is now a good possibility that our P&H can have reciprocity, under two unions that was IMPOSSIBLE
4) Unions can finally combine services saving our union money NOW and it has already produced savings…as in ONE card, ONE dues payment, ONE mailing of cards.
5) One stop shopping for questions about a job. Members don’t have to figure out which dept, which union to call for a payment issue etc.
You can name everything under the sun, Matt. You’ve already called the MAJORITY of members “sheep” with no ability to think for themselves.
You have to understand, that one statement colors each statement you make now and in the future. Oh, wait, I take that back…there have been several statements that color your point of view. But this last one is nice and neat. You think everybody is stupid and can’t think for themselves.
All contracts for performers who work in front of cameras & microphones are now under one union. Big. Of course, it’s not so big for someone who can’r get work in front of cameras & microphones. Or on stage, now, it seems.
Yes to Tom’s post…sad but true. No shot at theatre, TV or film these days.