Memo to SAG members: Just say no

If you had any doubt about the depth of trouble the Screen Actors Guild is in right now, you only had to pick up Wednesday’s LA Times op-ed page, where Melissa Gilbert, a former SAG president, basically read the riot act to the current SAG administration, calling their upcoming strike authorization vote a "foolhardy move that endangers not only the union, but our entire entertainment industry." While acknowledging that the deal on the table has its flaws, she asked a pertinent question, in light of the fact that unemployment in California is expected to reach 9% next year: "How can any SAG member vote to knowingly put so many people in our industry into further jeopardy during the largest financial crisis since the Depression?"

It’s no secret that SAG is now a guild divided against itself, with a hugely influential group of stars having joined a growing legion of rank-and-file realists who are now firmly aligned against any kind of strike. Living in its own dream world, the SAG leadership is still steaming full speed ahead, Titanic-style, oblivious to all the icebergs in its path, with its plan to send out strike authorization ballots January 2nd.  The guild needs a 75% approval by those voting to forge ahead with a strike. However, in her piece, Gilbert revealed just how serious the union’s divisions are by introducing an explosive new phrase into the contentious debate, a phrase that must have sent chills down the spine of SAG president Alan Rosenberg.

Boldly predicting that many working guild members are not only determined to vote against a strike but “will not honor if one is called,” she used the phrase you only hear when a union is starting to splinter—“financial core.” Known in guild parlance as fi-core, it is the way dissenting members give up their guild membership but retain their union protection while opting to work during a strike. The fact that Gilbert even voiced the phrase tells you that Rosenberg and SAG chief negotiator Doug Allen have managed to thoroughly alienate a host of guild stalwarts with their capricious leadership.

After being rocked by a lengthy strike by the WGA earlier this year, no one in Hollywood, from the highest-salaried studio boss to the lowliest office temp, wants to suffer through another work stoppage, especially with studios already having firing hundreds of employees in recent days. Knowing it has been painted into a corner, SAG is going with its one last option—call for a strike vote, hope to win an overwhelming mandate and then, using a strike threat as leverage, try to wrangle a few face-saving concessions from studio negotiators. “Studios Avert SAG Strike: Deal Sweetened With 11th Hour Compromise ” would be the way Variety would headline the pact.

There’s only one problem with SAG’s strategy. It’s increasingly unlikely that it will get a 75% vote, much less an impressive majority. And even if it does, the studios won’t play ball. Infuriated by the guild leadership’s refusal to accept a deal every other union took earlier this year, buffeted by all sorts of bad economic news and worried that DVD sales will continue to crater in the coming months, the studios aren’t planning to do any more negotiating. Rightly or wrongly, the deal they put on the table isn’t getting any better. It’s take it or leave it time. The doves in the studio firmament are hoping the guild will toss out its current leadership, paving the way for a more pragmatic team to take control. The hawks simply want to crush the guild like a bug. As Variety recently reported, 20th Century Fox has already acknowledged that it wouldn’t rule out switching its current TV series from SAG to AFTRA contracts, a move Warners said it could make as well. AFTRA has said it wouldn’t participate in such a move, but it was another crystal clear message that the studios plan to play hardball. Using the current economic troubles as a handy excuse, they’d like nothing better than to rollback some of the gains the guilds have made in recent years.

Apparently oblivious to what a bad hand they have in this poker game, SAG is playing into the hard-liner’s hands, threatening to undue many of the impressive gains the Writers Guild achieved during its strike. The WGA didn’t just win some valuable concessions from the studios, it persuaded many industry observers that a show business guild could be a responsible player in the game, flexing its muscles, handily trouncing the studios in the PR battle and sticking up for its members without tossing them all off a cliff. It’s hard to fathom what the SAG leadership’s game plan is right now. To use a metaphor that Doug Allen, a former negotiator for the NFL players association might understand, SAG is like a football team deep in their own territory at the end of the fourth quarter, down a couple of touchdowns, without their best players on the field.

Taking a strike vote in the middle of a deep recession is like tossing a Hail Mary pass on fourth and long. There’s really only one way the game can end and it’s not pretty.

Comments

[PAUL TRENT]

What do you mean WGA didn't throw its members off a cliff?

Looking up at NBC from the bottom, from 10 Oclock high in a darkening sky, from that network cliff the fallen can remember: long form, short form and episodic writers now out of jobs must surely wonder if they were lemmings for the political aims of Patric Verrone and David Young, whose last organizing job for the Teamsters sent the workers jobs to India.

India is where Dreamworks may get some of its dreams delayed.

Unions are not always a benefit to the self-employed, which all artists are.

[LPB]

Your comments would be better if they also included some admonition to producers to compromise.

The anti-Strike statements/blogs I read seem to all take the position that "SAG must give in" or else something terrible will happen.

If an economic holocaust is looming in a strike, AMPTP should be urged to sweeten their offer. And please, no simple comparisons to what WGA, DGA, etc settled for.

Aside from AFTRA (which isn't completely an actor's group), you're comparing apples to oranges when you say, "Well, the Writers settled, so should SAG."

[Toby]

WGA was foolishly talked into accepting a REALLY bad deal in 1992 over VHS and later DVDs.

"Oh you'll be able to make it up in 3 years" is what EVERYONE was saying. "VHS is an emerging market that needs to grow" is what the Studios said...

And what happen then?

It took the WGA almost 10 years to "make it up"...and because of new emerging technology (the internet), DVDs and such are on a historic decline and soon will go the way of the VHS.

Fast forward to NOW, they are saying the EXACT same thing, KNOWING the exact same thing will happen.

And what about those actors who are for a NO vote (like Tom Hanks).

Well of course Tom Hanks will be for a No vote...he's a producer. He's made more money off of My Big Fat Greek Wedding than any pic he's done in the last 10 years.

I say, Vote Yes.

This is NOT about the economy. It's about paying actors when you get paid. What does paying your actors a portion of your Internet advertising have ANYTHING to do with the economy?

[Dave Atkins]

During the course of the long WGA strike, the actors made their concerns about the shortcomings of the proposed settlement known to the WGA. Despite showing solidarity by walking the lines with their writer brethren, the WGA caved in on many key issues regarding new media.

Nothing that has happened since that contract was arrived at has proven anything than SAG's prescience. Blockbuster and Netflix have moved to streaming movie delivery. You Tube is being commercialized.

However, because the Producers have wrested a contract that tilts hugely in their favor from the Directors and Writers, they are using those contracts as leverage against the Actors. The economy has tanked, but the Producers are offering no concessions to reflect that reality from their side.

That the Producers will attempt unfair practices to try to break SAG is no reason for SAG to surrender to the foolishness of their fellow Guilds. If anything, those tactics should be resisted. Threats are not a valid reason to withdraw intelligent demands. That they're resorted to them instead of reason should make us all the more suspicious.

[jeff]

The fact that you, who have probably never made 5cents as an actor,are using your column to pontificate about the SAG strike authorization vote is scary.Scary because people will read it. You say the offer on the table isn't getting any better and Rosenberg and Allen should be pragmatic and not try to have leverage with a strike authorization. Maybe instead of leverage they should come to the table with with a bucket of soapy water and sponges and ask the Baracuda's on the other side if they can get a better deal if they wash their cars. And your footbal analogy that we don't have our best players in the game is silly. Hanks, Clooney and some of the others have production companies. So they would be the "owners" in your scenario and not on the field trying to win the game in the 4th quarter. The least they could do is root for their team not against them.

[Michael]

What the article seems to say is that this strike would hurt everyone in Hollywood and in Los Angeles. I used to be an actor and member of the guild, but the strikes it has had in the past has really done little more than hurt a lot of people and drive business out of town.
Plus what it does not address is that this strike has actually been going on for the past 7 months! I work as a photographer in Hollywood and I work with a lot of actors. Since the contract ended on June 30th the entire town has been on hold waiting for Alan Rosenberg to make a decision. Now it's another month before the ballots get out and almost 2 months before they find the results. I don't know about you, but I've been very slow this year between the writers and this (potential) SAG strike. It's going to hurt a lot more people who are not actors than are in the entire guild.
Sure they have a right to strike and I believe that the issues are valid, but just wait a year and give the new administration a chance to get this economy back on it's feet and if you can't work it out by then...then I think people would understand. It's just wrong time to do this.

[A starving gaffer...]

Here's the thing I feel some people may be missing. No one is stating that paying actorS their dues is wrong. They should get some sort of compensation from internet advertising. Yet, what everyone opposes is the actual STRIKE. Nowadays who can afford NOT to work. A new contract for SAG should be worked out.

But now is not the time. To strike and cause a work stoppage makes it seem that people are oblivious to what is going on in our country right now. First of all, unemployment and lay off rates are increasing. Next, California is already in a state of financial emergency. Another work stoppage is going to make our economy take another step in the wrong direction. Everyone is this country is wondering how we can help the economy, this will most definitely NOT help.

Next, the strike almost seems inconsiderate to the rest of us who work in this industry. In the battle above the line, people tend to forget the crew. I am a recent film school grad, who actually has plans to move to California within the next month. I was told it was bad timing because of the economy. But decided this is my only move left. I've worked around New York, but I want to give L.A. a shot. I've spent all this time taking lo/no/deferred jobs, just to build my resume and reel, for the long shot that I can work as a PA in a studio film.

Now, I'm moving to L.A. looking foward to work stoppage. Mind you, I was a stead freelancer, so this IS my job. I have no side job. How will I be able to work when my current profession is not working, and no retail job is hiring because of economic problems? I beg that this strike will not happen. And that is why I oppose this. There was a saying someone once told me about the crew: Big studio crews are happy they're not working in TV. TV crews are happy they're not working in commercials. Commercial crews are happy they're not working no/lo pay gigs. Lo/No crews are happy to be working......I want to stay happy.

[Weston Nathanson]

All the complaints about the WGA and AFTRA agreements are true, but irrelevant to where we are now. The producers will not agree to anything beyond where they are now because the actor's unions are not unified. SAG can't even agree with itself, much less with AFTRA. My frustration with the current SAG leadership is they act as if whatever they do will be supported by all actors when this is demonstrably not true; "Membership First" undercut the previous leadership and so should not be surprised to receive the same reaction. We are now in the situation where there is no good outcome. This was foreseeable and is a failure of leadership. A strike will not be be respected by a sufficient percentage of SAG to be effective; stepping back from a strike authorization will undercut the negotiations to the point where SAG may have to accept an even worse agreement. The question for us all is which action produces the least damage, not just to SAG, but to us as actors.

[Melissa Gilbert?????????????????]

Seriously? Melissa Gilbert? Same knucklehead who lead the Screen Actors Guild into an almost oblivion, trying to enforce rule 1 on it's members to never work non-union, all the while OWNING and OPERATING a non-union production company in Canada? Who gives a crap what Melissa Gilbert says. Any idiot who pens an article that headlines Melissa Gilbert as being the voice of reason needs to have his head checked. And then his nads.
Melissa is an AFTRA supporter who wears sheep's clothing.