Justine Bateman: What's Really Going on with SAG

SAG Board Member Justine Bateman gives her point of view on the status of SAG contract process.  Respond beneath in comments of in in the forum about her post Union Forum. 

There are a lot of e-mails and post going back and forth about issues that aren't important to SAG members right now.  They are distractions and "Straw Dogs", as my friend David Latt calls them.  I wanted to tell you what's going on with SAG.

AFTRA

1. POACHING: AFTRA is a scumbag union which has been poaching SAG jobs for years. There's no confusion about jurisdiction. SAG has work that is recorded, no matter the medium upon which it is recorded, for later play (sitcoms, dramas, films) and AFTRA has live shows (newscasts, talk shows, etc.) and those recorded in a "live manner" (awards shows, Saturday Night Live, and then variety shows and soap operas which used to be live). Pretty simple.

They decided to widen their purview by going to producers who naturally would have called SAG for a contract and instead offering the producers a cheaper contract. Basically telling the producers they could get you, the actor, to work there for LESS money than they would earn under a SAG contract. Of course the producers, in order to save some money, have taken these AFTRA contracts. So, Dual-Card members, do you feel like you're getting your money's worth from AFTRA when you pay your dues? And guess how many news stations are NON-UNION? Don't you think AFTRA ought to do their proper job and organize those stations? Those huge news cable channels? They haven't because it's harder to organize non-union work than it is to poach work that would have already been covered by another union.

2. PHASE ONE: AFTRA has tried to merge with SAG about 16 times over the years. Each time the SAG membership has voted it down. For various and complex reasons, we haven't wanted to take on their problems (natch). Years ago, though, some of the SAG leadership instituted Phase One in order to pave the way for a merger. Phase One means AFTRA is in the negotiating room with SAG with, hold on, 50% OF THE SAY. They do 0% of Film work and yet get 50% of the say on those contracts. They have on average 3 PrimeTime TV shows and yet they have 50% of the say on those contracts. Additionally, I am told by past members of  SAG negotiating committees that the AFTRA contingency consistently votes AGAINST what the SAG contingency wants in those negotiations with the AMPTP. Do you, as a working SAG member, LIKE THAT? That bothers me a hell of a lot more than whether or not some actor who doesn't work very much has one vote when it comes to ratify the contract.

3. SHARED OFFICES: Did you know that there are shared offices all over the country for SAG and AFTRA? Did you know that your dues are financially supporting AFTRA's presence there? Does that piss you off?

I want AFTRA out of our back yard. They have destroyed an actors chances of earning a proper living on Basic Cable with their crappy contracts. And now they threaten us by saying they'll go into the AMPTP early and suggest they'll try to offer really cheap contracts for Prime Time TV AND FILM? Seriously?
I stopped paying dues to AFTRA (as I only got an AFTRA card to cover me for TALK SHOWS anyway) a few months ago and went on "Honorable Withdrawal". I suggest all dual card members do this. You say you want to go on Honorable Withdrawal in a letter with your AFTRA number on it, sign it and fax it to them. Boom, no more money to support their attempt to destroy SAG by Wall-Marting us.

I also think we should pull our shared offices and stop supporting them in this way as well.

I also think we should tell our agents we will NOT do AFTRA work. We won't even audition for AFTRA acting jobs. Let the producers get a proper SAG contract for the actors and we'll be there to audition for that project. Aren't you sick of your earned dollars being split between the two unions, sometimes disqualifying you for your SAG health insurance?

THE CONTRACT

The internet will soon be THE ONLY point of distribution. We must be fierce in our efforts to protect our work in this arena. The WGA were valiant in their strides for a better contract. They improved on the DGA contract. Now it's our job to improve upon that.

1. THE 17-DAY WINDOW:The 17-day (sometimes 24-day) exhibition window must go away. This is the corporations ability to play your work on-line for free, eliminating your ability to reap residual checks. There should be NO window. You play it, you pay it. Last I checked, the advertisers had to pay for EVERY airing, not just for those after the first 17 days. As far as Film goes, movies will be pulled off a large server on the internet soon (as they are already being done in one particular chain of theaters) and projected onto the screen. How would you like the contract language to be twisted so that if you have points on a film, they DO NOT make it applicable until AFTER the first two and a half weeks? Wow, that would be a lot of money to not have if you've got a hit film.

2. THE BUDGET CEILINGS: Presently, the projects have to be over a certain dollar amount for the project to be required to be union. The exception is when you are employing a union member. This has the potential to create a HUGE non-union pool of actors. It does NOT give actors just starting out the opportunity to earn the protection of SAG membership through these "under the ceiling" jobs. We can't allow that.

OUR LEADERSHIP: We are in really good hands with Doug Allen, our National Executive DIrector, and Alan Rosenberg, our passionate President. SAG also has an excellent staff made up of intelligent people as well as a tireless negotiating committee. We need to continue to support these men and women and help them in anyway we can.

Basically, we members of the Screen Actor's Guild in 2008 have a big responsibility to be stewards of this union. It's our turn. And I for one am not going to let some news broadcaster, radio show host, talk show union called AFTRA destroy my union. I'm also not going to allow a contract that eliminates the possibility to earn a living as an actor in the future by not getting the the New Media aspects of the our future contract as tight as possible.

All the performers in SAG want the same thing; an incredibly strong contract so we can earn a proper living bringing entertainment to the world. Let's make sure that anything that is in the way of that is dealt with.

Justine Bateman

Comments

[VOguy]

I'm an AFTRA member (not yet a SAG member) and I agree with most of what you've said. I ONLY do voiceover (no on-camera) so boycotting Aftra work would basically leave me unemployed (other than occasional SAG job if I do TV ads).
What else can I do as a rank and file AFTRA member to help the cause?

[Scott Ellington]

SAG leadership is offically onboard with this proposal or it isn't.
I'm genuinely grateful for the first fragment of hardline straight-talk I've heard in weeks, but this call for concerted action by dual cardholders affects the prelude to negotiations with the AMPTP...how exactly?

[Scott Ellington]

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/moguls-and-sag-leaders-met-secretly/

Faith in leadership seems like a good thing to promote.

[Keith Patterson]

I have had my earning split exactly in half last year. Which means that I barely made the lesser health insurance in both unions. New York is really hurting because producers decide to go with the cheap AFTRA contracts in order to make it cheaper to film here. HELP PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! And the AFTRA reps try to say that anything on tape is covered under an AFTRA contract which is a blatant LIE. I've worked on countless SAG jobs that are on tape.

[Get Real]

Justine has her head up her ass. This is more of the usual Membership First crap that has ruined a 26 year relationship between two great unions.

She's wrong about the jurisdiction, wrong about poaching and wrong about shared offices. The shared offices are there to give the RBD members a connection to their union - something MeFirsters don't seem to care about. Hell, they'd saw off New York too.

I wonder how many of her SAG basic cable credits come from shows produced outside the USA where MeFirst claims Global Rule 1 is saving jobs but where it really is costing the rest of us opportunities.

It's easy to complain and cherry pick points in a deal you think suck - and maybe they do - but you have to remember that it's a negotiation, and you don't get everything.

[Three cards is two too many]

United??? Hollywood. Right.

Bateman must not have heard: the scab and the D-lister have given up on this one.

The answer isn't fighting amongst ourselves, it's getting together and working these issues out so that all performers can make a living, get health insurance and a pension.

Membership First has forgotten who the real enemy is and is shooting us not in the foot but in the heart.

[Stuart Creque]

Three cards is two too many: "The answer isn't fighting amongst ourselves, it's getting together and working these issues out so that all performers can make a living, get health insurance and a pension."

I second that. SAG-AFTRA and WGA-IATSE feuds suck vital energy out of the effort to strike a fair deal with management, and they inject a lingering poison into the effort to create true labor solidarity.

[Brian Hamilton]

RIGHT ON Justine! In the negotiations, AFTRA is not an asset-- but an albatross. It's time for actors to CHOOSE whom they want to represent them in collective bargaining. No more of this crap: same actor, same performance + different union = less pay and benefits!? It's time to kick the "T" out of AFTRA for good.

[mheister]

Bravo Justine!

Justine has an excellent grasp on these issues. Check out her posts on the old UH site concerning the changing technology, how the corporations are going to use that technology, and how that affects artists.

While the issues between SAG and AFTRA must be addressed at some point, over the next few months it is my sincere hope the two unions work together hand-in-glove to get the best contract for all actors.

[Luzid]

Great points, Ms. Bateman.

Thank you for resisting the urge to fold on New Media -- it's encouraging to see others who realize the AMPTP's deal is a joke that robs creatives of residuals.

[Sean]

I loved you in family ties!

[VDOVault]

Stuart Creque wrote:

"I second that. SAG-AFTRA and WGA-IATSE feuds suck vital energy out of the effort to strike a fair deal with management, and they inject a lingering poison into the effort to create true labor solidarity."

Uh, pardon me but the only member of IATSE who was publically and senselessly feuding with the WGA was Tom Short, IA's president. I spoke with countless crew members and most of them would love to ditch Short as their leader ASAP and make more than what Joss Whedon has called 'Toy Story Money' (which was the princely sum he made for writing the script for 'Toy Story', one of Disney's many cash cows) or what you and I would call 'zero dollars' for their hard work in bringing TV shows and movies to the public.

As for the SAG vs AFTRA feud let me make a prediction: if you show any kind of weakness to the AMPTP members they'll gladly devour your lunch and nose around looking for more to freeload from you. The moguls want to pay as close to 'Toy Story Money' as they can get away with to everyone involved in making entertainment. If a union decides to appease the moguls, the moguls won't go away but rather keep coming back for more concessions. Both unions would do well to learn from the WGA (and to a lesser extent to the DGA) and decide quickly where they are going to draw the line lest they find themselves eaten out of house and home by the predatory practices of a few multinational conglomerates.

Also keep in mind this rule of negotiating: 'If you don't ask, you don't get'. The moguls understand this and implement this maxim well and actors would be wise to adopt this strategy unless they want to be in a position of perpetual supplication.

[Working SAG & AFTRA Actor]

An actress friend forwarded me a long post about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) after I asked her what was up with a bunch of pissed off, aging, once-working actors who banded together to defeat the SAG AFTRA merger. They call themselves Membership First, and they recruited both the clueless Bill Daniels as SAG Prez and then Alan Rosenberg who spent about as much time in the SAG Boardroom in advance of his recruitment as you've spent in cabarets in Minsk.

Alas, Miz Bateman has fallen sway to the wiles of Seymour Cassell, Kent McCord (who still fits in his Adam 12 cop's uniform,) and Frances Fisher (whom they call "Frantic Fisher" in the SAG Board room.)

So who cares? Working actors do. Membership First has fucked us so bad, I still reach for the herbal healing creme.

They so mismanaged the 2000 Commercials Strike that HALF of actors’ work went permamently non-union and is done now in Phoenix, Atlanta, and Dallas. So much for our commercial careers.

Miz Bateman’s Membership First screwed actors out of our protection afforded by the SAG Agency Franchise Agreement by fixing the vote in 2002 with massively illegal e-mail blasts to the non-working membership, and for the past six years we've got to duel with our agents with a magic marker when it comes time to fill out our general service agreements every three years.

In 2003, Membership First once again fucked actors in the kiester by spreading droolingly false lies about the impending SAG/AFTRA merger, by luring the likes of Charleton Heston & Ed Asner to pimp expensive disinformation brochures & postcard mailings on the membership. One Membershipfirster was taken to civil court for illegal e-mail blasts to SAG Staff & members with more threatening bullshit.

I swear to God, if I were a magazine writer, I'd make a bundle selling this stuff to Vanity Fair!

But, alas, I'm a lowly actor, working for a middle-class living, while the phoney-ass former celebs who populate the Hollywood SAG Board rub my ass with cayenne as they serve their two-dozen deluded selves with visions of massive gains at the negotiating table, if only those wimps on the SAG Boards in NY, Chicago, Atlanta, D.C., Boston, etc., plus AFTRA would just see it the Membership First way.

And what way is that? It's the raging, persecuted, narcissistic, piss-colored glasses through which they view the universe: actors have been fucked by the meek and mild New Yorkers & AFTRAns, have somehow been prevented from asking for their fair share of DVDs, resids, etc.

SAG & AFTRA have been short-sheeting each other and jockeying for position in tv since the beginning. SAG was the first egregious undercutter when it eliminated the +10% provision from SAG contracts, undercutting AFTRA's traditional and current position: an actor gets scale plus 10% to the agent + Health & Retirement payments to the Fund. SAG undercut that in order to get some commercial work back. Then they absorbed Screen Extras Guild, adding thousands of extras to the SAG roster.

In 2003 58.5% of SAG members voted up the SAG/AFTRA merger, but with the bullshit disinformation campaigns Membership First Hollywood SAG Board members laid down, it failed. Then Hollywood SAG Board members went about firing two CEO's in a row. While they were mopping up their own Executives’ blood, AFTRA went about organizing basic cable scripted programming. Should this be SAG work? AFTRA's had jurisdiction over TV programming since 1951. It currently has jurisdiction over 70% of tv programming and 10% of the 3 hours of prime-time.

So it's a weird, very political, tenuous situation between SAG & AFTRA, while all of us who work, have membership in both unions. So when someone like Justine Bateman -- who shoots in Canada, affording virtually no American actors work on her tv show -- starts shooting her uninformed mouth off, parroting Frantic Fisher's ugly, angry, anti-AFTRA screed, it just throws piss in the punch we all drink from.

AFTRA or SAG, we all want jurisdiction in internet (AFTRA just gained it in their recently concluded Network Code negotiations) and we all want gains in DVDs. So for Justine and her graying Membership First homeys to start shitting on every actor's lunch tray because they can, and because they suffer the unfortunate & occasional actor's disability - NPD - we all have to take a breath and concentrate on the truth and the prize: jurisdiction over new media and smart collective bargaining with actors who cooperate with each other, not howl like unfed dogs.

Working Hollywood SAG & AFTRA member

[David Saggman]

If I'm tired, or if I'm experiencing a lot of stress at work, sometimes I'll have a somewhat sag member. Not often, but when it happens, I'll think of Ms. Bateman typing this entry in a flimsy negligee and I think I'll have a starring "roll" once again.

[Lipsos Morosis]

I love Justine Bateman.

I am sofa king we todd did.

[Lipsos Morosis]

REALITY TV SUCKS