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Being a member of a union of any kind doesn’t necessarily mean you are a pro-labor, wonk spinning, anti-capitalist! Unions in the United States have been around since the early days of Railroads and the Industrial Revolution….when workers were under paid, had terrible working conditions and left a raft of widows and orphans in the wake of uncaring Land & Railroad Barons. The plight of mine workers is well documented and even today, those folks keep dying from time to time while working in horendous conditions for moderate pay. The many jobs that could endanger life soon was plant food for other groups of so-called deprived workers and Guilds of Workers. The ancient Masonic Guilds that built the temples of Eqypt and beyond used secrecy and plegdes of devotion not to release the information of their work to those uninitiated. Doctors, Lawyers, CPA’s and other have followed suit, in the so-called Professions which require standards of effort and application.
As a member of the Retail Clerks Union in 1957, one was allowed to become a Box Boy at the local Food Market Chain. If you wanted to make big money, you could have moved to Detroit and become a member of the United Auto Workers that negotiated with Ford, Chrysler, GM and a long list of lesser known manufacturers of Automobiles….made in America! While the Box Boy earned $1.57 an hour, when minimum wage was $1.25….almost anyone that worked in Detroit for the Big Three was making $6.75 and above. That was a lot of money in 1957. Sure, they had yearly lay-offs when demand was down, but most of those folks were working 8 to 10 months a year, at very big wages.
Today, Teachers, Bureaucrats and Public Employees of almost every stripe – belong to a Union. The amount of political clout with elected lawmakers is immense and rivals the power of big corporations, monied interests and unified fronts of Political organizations and associations. When one considers the amount of money accumulated by such entities as CALPERS and CALSTRS…..one starts to wonder why there are little or no constraints on how they can apply those funds to Political Action Committees, Independent Expenditures and the general application of Walking Around Money…..WAM is the mother’s milk of politics they say! In the words of Carl Sagan: “Billions and Billions!”
Today after several years, the Boards of the Screen Actor’s Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Don & Ken, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly as well as Matt Lauer and Ann Curry would be typical AFTRA members. Sometimes most civilians believe that Actors and Performers, Stunt Folks, NFL Television Camerafolks and almost anyone you see on camera on the Internet including Kim Kardashian all must belong to the Screen Actor’s Guild. This is not true…..Stunt Folks have their own Union, Camerafolks their own, Directors…..of every stripe…their own, Producers….their own. The list and the complications are even deeper than that…..There is also a very powerful…Writer’s Guild….not supposed to be Union….but it still negotiates heavily with the Studio Execs, Producers and the Distribution Companies.
SAG has pretty close to 120,000 members…..AFTRA about 70,000 members. The concept is that together they would be stronger than each by themselves. This concept has led to Actor and President of SAG, Ken Howard taking the lead in joining the two Unions (Guilds and Associations) together; in order to force the folks with the money to pay both groups more. This is a very bad idea and the main reason is this: Actors like Kate Winslet, John Trivolta, Ben Kingley, Helen Mirren, George Clooney, Clint Eastwood and so many others….are actually talented, gifted beings that have little in common either in desire or intention with the likes of Chris Colinsworth or Al Michaels or even John Madden.
The point is fairly clear: Each Union, Guild or Association needs to target the needs of their own constituencies. When messages are mixed…..the results are usually less than desired. Television, the Internet, The Movies and even Smart Cell Phones can all be called “The Entertainment Industry”, yet each one of those segments offer entirely different types of Entertainment for entirely different types of audiences and performers. Reality TV will never replace Classical Literature or translating a great historical event to the Silver Screen with the power and effect of modern technology. The Titanic and Avatar by James Cameron are examples of a theatrical experience along with the Star Wars saga….that mark the line between SAG and a non-application of AFTRA as the viable entity that should negotiate Union and Guild Wages for Big Budget Block Busters. Perhaps, those days are numbered. Perhaps, there will be no more Studio Block Busters….maybe everything is going be shot on a cell phone and delivered on You Tube!
We doubt that movies will cease to be made by major Studios in the future! Whether those Studios will be headquartered in Beijing, Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai, Delhi, Indonesia, London, Paris or Hollywood. The need for the Screen Actor’s Guild exists during these very transitory times because Actor’s need protection from uncertainty, abusive employers and simply as a safety net. Right now, 40,000 members of both SAG and AFTRA belong to both Unions. They argue that because the Unions are not joined; They cannot qualify in wages to get Health or Dental Insurance in either Union. Our solution is fairly straightforward: Join the Health and Dental Plans together for both Unions. This action would not require a coalition or merger of both Unions….only a simple vote by the membership of the separate unions; to apply earnings from both Unions to qualify for Health and Dental Insurance on an annual basis.
SAG has a history or excellence that neither requires joining with AFTRA nor could that action do anything but lower the bar by use of merger card. AFTRA has tradtionally always voted upwards of 76% in favor of Merger. SAG has voted 48% in favor. There is a message in that obviously AFTRA is the one that wants the heft from SAG….not the other way around!
The vote of the membership probably comes in April and it is our hope that any SAG Vote for Merger…..will fail again! We don’t need it, we don’t want it and any Administration or General Accounting Expenses that efficiently can be joined together…..could be done without creating a formal coalition.
If AFTRA is not willing to make these concessions….then undoubtedly they had something else in mind….and we are not buying it.
You don’t know as much as you think you do. CALPERS and CALSTRS are retirement funds, which are heavily regulated by the federal government. Nobody can use a penny of that money for political campaigns. The trustees of the funds have fiduciary responsibility; they can go to jail if they use any of the money for any purpose other than providing retirement benefits to the employees.
*Dr. Austin,
We are always open to learning new things. It is part of the process of growing and enriching life.
One thing is for sure, since you know these two investment vehicles so well: They both heavily invested in Hedge Funds, Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps! Those funds can also have G & A associated fees withdrawn by the Administrators. What they do with those funds….is definitely up for grabs. Saying that Mutual Funds or any Investment Vehicles you can mention are bulltetproof may be a tad naive. Several well thought off Funds have gone belly up recently. Additionally, The Big Two of which you speak have lost Billions and Billions since 2009. “But we only know what we read in the newspaper!”…..as Will Rogers might say.
Ron & Anna:
Let’s be clear about one thing; your comment that “SAG has voted 48% in favor” of merger is patently false.
In the last merger vote years ago, 76% of AFTRA members and 58% of SAG members voted YES for a merger. 58%. No matter how you count it, that is a majority. However, a supermajority of 60% was needed in each union in order to pass. By my count, that means 134 of every 200 performers wanted the merger.
You also say, “Join the Health and Dental Plans together for both Unions.” What you fail to realize is that they are separate business entities from each other as well as from their own unions, with their own board of trustees. They operate independently from the unions themselves, and each has a fiduciary responsibility to its OWN members, not to any other group. With your SAG-superior attitude, do you really think that you would be willing to join YOUR artist-earned pension and health monies with funds from “untalented” AFTRA people, let alone from a weatherman in Peoria? I think not. After all, that would be taking money from “talented, gifted beings that have little in common either in desire or intention with the likes of Chris Colinsworth or Al Michaels or even John Madden.”
And finally, if you’re going to write a blog, get a spell and grammar checker.
Cheers,
Mike Kraft
Also, you cite the names of stars as being “typical” SAG or AFTRA members, when in reality, the typical members of both unions are people you’ve never heard of. And remember that 4 out of 7 AFTRA members are also SAG members, and 1 in 3 SAG members are also AFTRA members.
I believe the new merger plan will succeed, and a supermajority of SAG performers will overwhelmingly support it.
Mike Kraft
It’s certainly true that that the interests and concerns of actors are different from (though also overlap) those of talk show hosts or broadcasters, but what makes you think that a larger, unified union couldn’t organize itself in a way that allows it to address a diverse workforce? After all, that’s exactly what AFTRA itself has been doing successfully for some time now–with its actors, its singers, its dancers, its audiobook narrators, its broadcasters, etc.–all with different specific needs and, logically, collective bargaining agreements. Whatever our niche in the media production industry, all of us are increasingly working, in effect, for the same small and increasingly consolidated group of employers. Of course there are details to be worked out, but we’d be foolish not to match their power at the bargaining table by uniting our own forces.
*Dr. Michael Kraft & Paul Horn,
Great comments from both of you folks. Dr. Kraft seems to buy the Ken Howard story they have been selling for 10 years that “togetherness” creates the stronger unified front against the evil Producers and Studio folks. We will have to agree to disagree on that issue for a couple of reasons. “Different Mission Statements” would be our first argument. SAG was originally created to protect the health and safety of action stars like Erroll Flynn, Tyrone Power and literally thousands of extras and day players who, much like dogs, horses and animals of all descriptions were willingly sacrificed to the silver screen “for bringing a sense of reality”. As a actress on several MGM productions Ron’s mom was put in physical “harms way”: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Great Seigfield” being two prime examples. Mass crowd scenes and huge productions have their dangers. The death of modern actors, stuntfolks and others continues to occur. Not always front page news..the safety issues, the pay and the realities of dangerous productions are SAG prime concerns. Seldom do these concerns bother most Radio personalities for example. We will not argue that the lines are becoming blurred when it comes to Cable, HBO, Showtime giant productions which are not only worthy theatrical representations….but just plain good acting. In many of these cases….they continue to be SAG approved, not AFTRA…for the same issues we have mentioned.
AFTRA sets a lower bar in our opinion. AFTRA for Reality TV and Soap Operas is probably worthy along with all the American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and other very popular Prime Time Shows. Ellen for example is definitely AFTRA. Even though we love Whoopie, “The View”….AFTRA. Get our point. Different Mission Statements.
Dr. Paul, we would be remiss if we did not mention that diversity and an expanding market place has made the IPOD the method of choice to find entertainment on the web. However, the technical downloading of productions has nothing with the creative methods and the wages demanded for any specific title.
Residuals, Health and Welfare, Pensions and Creative Ownership are the bigger fish in the room. Why residuals phase out in seven years seems ridiculous for very big blockbuster productions. Leonardo and Kate should still be getting Residuals for the Titantic….right? Perhaps, that is the reason they are re-releasing “Titanic” in 3-D.
Finally, Dr. Kraft, we would be remiss to mention that 58% was the correct number during 2002 last vote on Unification…by SAG members! That doesn’t change the outcome that time and hopefully we can defeat this measure again….by a much wider margin…if the truth gets out.
Lot’s of people at SAG and AFTRA will be losing their jobs, Administrating both Unions..thats what Mergers do…as you know. Our Dues will rise by double, our Benefits will set higher requirements to attain. Your argument about not being able to join the two Health and Pension programs is not logical. It does take a strong lead lawyer and an Actuarial Attorney versed in such things….but easily done in a year.
We do not need to join SAG & AFTRA to do that!
OK, the second issue is one of talented representations of historical events.