Campaign Watch: Ann-Marie Contradicts the Allens/Sitrick Talking Points
It struck us, as we were reviewing the Allens Labor Day message, presumably drafted by the new SAG crisis communications consultant Sitrick & Co., that there was something a bit off about the message. Then we thought back to last week’s candidate interviews, and in particular to Membership First leader Anne-Marie Johnson’s statements to Jonathan Handel.
Here’s what the Allens/Sitrick said:
“Screen Actors Guild stands up to the studios and networks to fight for what’s fair for actors.”
Then there’s Anne-Marie, to Jonathan Handel:
“Fair is irrelevant. There is nothing fair in this business. It’s not about fair. It’s about being a participant. Fair and respect are words you need to leave at home.”
We know, we know…it’s all positively unfair…
Sounds like her bumper sticker regurgitation software is running an older version. She needs the 2.0 upgrade.
VOTE MEMBERSHIP FIRST – WE’RE LOUDER!
you know, I was reflecting on the current situation and I think it has many aspects, but:
“What I have said repeatedly is that this is not a watershed negotiation.” brian mccabe
is one that kind of sums this blog up.
it’s very, very, difficult for us, as americans, let alone us, as actors, to see the dividing line clearly.
this site is all over the map, but the map is basically called ” we hate membership first and capitulate immediately. the slate you support detests our elected leadership and favors merger with aftra.
you may deny that, but you all clearly want mf out, u4s in, and a quick deal. u4s says they won’t settle for anything less than mf, but you all seem to feel it will be a step in the right direction: “moderation, diplomacy, reason,” instead of “an inability to listen, aggression, power mad leadership, bad strategy,” etc.
as a rank amateur historian, one thing I’ve noticed is – there has rarely been a war in the history of this nation that was backed by much enthusiasm at first.
afghanistan? yes, dropping bombs from the air to get those bastards. then, boots on the ground to catch that guy (still waiting)
iraq? no
gulf war 1? yes, but I think we all guessed it would be over in 2 weeks, which it was.
vietnam? no
korea? no
world war II? no. not until we were attacked. before that, nobody wanted us in.
world war I? no. wilson ran on a platform of keeping us out.
civil war? no. people dreaded the thought. at least in the north, who had to go get the south. lincoln was vilified throughout. they tried to kill him and he had to sneak into d.c.
1812? no. too soon after the revolution.
revolution? no. I live in a town that made it’s living sending goods to nyc, which was british dominated – where the tory sympathizers had to flee to london, and when they returned after the war and died, the town wouldn’t put them in the town graveyard. they’re in an overgrown patch off behind the main graveyard.
and, like it or not. this is war.
I think mccabe is dead wrong. dangerously naive. the business is changing so fast, the distribution system is changing so fast, the old way of delivering content is changing so fast, and the guilds just missed the fastball. they left the bat on their shoulders. except sag.
as variety said yesterday “lehman brothers just released a doom and gloom report on the entertainment industry, causing a drop in entertainment stocks, which said, the old models of TV and film distribution are being threatened, and the surge in internet distribution may change them for good.”
and yet, here we sit, you all saying “don’t take a stand. it’s divisive, it’s antagonistic, we can achieve more through a change in leadership, and we should just accept the fact that this negotiation is over and take the best deal we can get.”
essentially: “we don’t want to go to war. it’s too scary. and we think it’s unnecessary. the conglomerates aren’t out to destroy the union – that’s absurd. take the deal.”
which is understandable. sometimes the opponent is insurmountable. yet people, countries, unions often fight nobly anyway.
sometimes war is avoidable, but men – always men – get their backs up, and next thing you know, people are coming home in bags.
well, we clearly have two points of view here:
1. get moderate. then give in. merge with aftra. see what happens.
2. fight off this contract until they drag you from the building. strike if you have to. it’s that important.
after careful consideration, I choose #2.
to say something as naive as “this is not a watershed contract” is astonishing to me. especially from someone in the business with experience.
to openly deride, challenge and scorn the leadership as they are faced with this grave situation, is… very strange. I’d prefer democracy in action, as in, they were elected fairly. so now, despite misgivings, it is our responsibility to support them and let them do their jobs, even if we disagree with the way they are going about it. to openly deride them, plays right into the amptp’s hope that “sag will be divided and vulnerable, collapsing under the weight of it own dissension, which will, as always, work to our benefit. let’s sit back and wait.”
u4s is an agenda-driven slate that, in the middle of this crucial negotiation, is being severely critical of the leadership. as are the regions. as is the n.y. board. as is aftra.
did they have the courage to officially express their objections? no. they reaffirmed the unions core principles 68 to 0, which makes the contract unacceptable on its face, without question. unless we wish to change the core principals of the union.
there is no real consequence for this… insurrection? betrayal? treason? it’s a union, not the U.S.A.
but, make no mistake, in unions past, the consequences of such insubordination to elected leadership would be quick and decisive, legally and yes, even physically. there is a long history of violent union confrontations.
and, I think it’s naive to scoff that this situation, if it spins out of control, which the current dissent is pushing it towards, could not possibly result in serious consequences.
we are talking about the ability of tens of thousands of middle class actors to make a decent living, versus their self-insured “star” union brethren, multi-millionaire studio heads and billionaire conglomerate c.e.o.’s who control them.
we’re talking about men and women who eek out a living as actors, 40 thousand dollars a year being the average wage, and we’re faced with a contract that, under any reasonable, unbiased appraisal, could cut that income in half, in a very short amount of time.
so, whatever “they” think: managers, agents, below the line folks, industry rag pundits, lawyers, casting directors, publicists, and other interested observers – others who don’t actually DO this for a living, although they make their living off the backs of those who do – need to understand – if this contract gets shoved down sag’s throat? you might want to limit the triumphalism. cause things could get ugly real quick.
I hope that doesn’t happen. but, people who already work in the most difficult industry to make a living in (or certainly one of them) in the country, and have families and bills to pay? won’t be ready to settle for a decrease in their standard of living simply because the producers think they have figured out a clever way to push those actors even further out of their profit stream.
and those actors who support moderation when faced with a contract like this, and merger with a union with a clear, longstanding, record of undercutting actors hard earned wages, may find themselves the object of real animosity if actors start to fail.
for thousands and thousands of other sag members, – if our demand for respect, and our hope of a fair wage starts to erode, while the corporations that employ us, continue to rake in billions?
all I’m saying is – the anti-leadership insurrectionists are playing with fire. that is in NO way a threat, only one person’s opinion, but it IS a recognition of the current reality, the looming potential of decline – because of a refusal to confront our adversaries, or even recognize them as such.
and it is something to be very carefully considered in all the anti-leadership grandstanding and vitriol being thrown around without consequence as of yet.
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Ed. Response – if you think $40,000 is the average wage in SAG, you’re so out of touch with reality that it’s hard to figure out how there can be common ground. On the other hand, if you’re trying to be threatening, you’re amusing.
You diss those who make this business possible. We appreciate their contributions, whether actors, agents or lawyers. You think they’re “hobbyists” if they’re not within 25 miles of the Beverly Center. We don’t care where they live or work. We also thank everyone who participates in union governance, regardless of political party.
In any event, it should be apparent to anyone with a pulse that Membership First has not been successful in any aspect of union leadership. It has failed to achieve major contracts. It has failed to maintain a professional staff, and has transformed the SAG bureaucracy into an action wing of the Membership First political party. It has failed to maintain solidarity with New York and the RBD, which are a major part of SAG. It has intentionally ruined the relationship with AFTRA, and in doing so has damaged actors in both unions.
If you call recognizing those failures being anti-Membership First, yes, we’re anti-Membership First. But Membership First isn’t SAG. We think of ourselves as pro-union.
At the end of the day, what you call treason we call patriotism.
“During contract negotiations, established unions may declare a strike in order to pressure an employer to agree to a contract. Established unions are most vulnerable to union busting when they undertake job actions such as a strike.
“The aim of the union buster is a “war of saturation bombing” in which half-truths and accusations put the union on the defensive. Forcing the union to spend hours defending itself during meetings means there’s no time left for the union’s planning efforts, or for campaign strategy. The workers won’t find the time to discuss their own issues if they’re sufficiently bombarded with the “twisted disinformation” sown by the union buster…….
“Strike breaking by hiring massive numbers of tough opportunists began to lose favor in the 1920s ….. By the 1930s, agencies began to rely more upon the use of informants and labor spies.
“Spy agencies hired to bust unions developed a level of sophistication that could devastate targets. “Missionaries” were undercover operatives trained to use whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors to create dissension …… in union halls. ….. Missionary campaigns have been known to destroy not only strikes, but unions themselves.
In the 1930s, the Pinkerton Agency employed twelve-hundred labor spies, and nearly one-third of them held high level positions in the targeted unions. The International Association of Machinists was damaged when Sam Brady, a veteran Pinkerton operative, held a high enough position in that union that he was able to precipitate a premature strike. All but five officers in a United Auto Workers local in Lansing, Michigan were driven out by Pinkerton agents. The five who remained were Pinkertons. At (one) plant, the union local was so badly injured by undercover operatives that membership dropped from more than twenty-five hundred, to fewer than seventy-five.
-Union busting, Wikipedia
(The entire article well worth a read..)
I’ll only speak for myself, but I wouldn’t trust our Membership First leaders to organize a field trip to Sav-On, much less a work stoppage.The best I can do is sign off on a crappy contract and hope these hammerheads are out of office before the next go around. Sad but true.
Jonathan Handel has posted his own reactions to the candidate interviews, and he’s pretty critical of both sides:
http://digitalmedialaw.blogspot.com/2008/08/sag-slate-interviews-disappointment.html
VG
editor:
“if you think $40,000 is the average wage in SAG, you’re so out of touch with reality that it’s hard to figure out how there can be common ground.”
this was rosenberg’s exact figure in front of congress during the wga strike. are you saying he lied before congress? and if you think the average wage is different, please show us the PROOF. please reply SUBSTANTIVELY – citing something besides your own navel.
un ombrero:
“Missionaries†were undercover operatives trained to use whispering campaigns or unfounded rumors to create dissension …… in union halls. ….. Missionary campaigns have been known to destroy not only strikes, but unions themselves.”
sounds like a perfect description of u4s and sagwatch, for that matter.
vo
yeah, handel was pretty critical of both sides. he pretty much said u4s is so vague and without a plan, they’re essentially useless an an agenda-slate to vote for
and he says mf is avoiding answers to some questions about their plans and he doubts “education and outreach” will be enough to get a strike authorization vote.
yeah. we’ll see.
of the two – I’ll go with the faction that actually has some balls. not to mention experience, courage, and the sense god gave them that it is STUPID to sign a deal that contradicts the CORE PRINCIPALS OF YOUR OWN UNION.
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Ed. Response – If Rosenberg claimed that the average annual covered earnings of a SAG member is $40,000, at best he was misleading. The best way to describe the earnings of a union is the median wage, which deals with the disproportionate effect the outliers in the $20 million per film club would have if every dollar of their earnings were used to balance out the more than 75% who have zero earnings each year.
“If Rosenberg claimed that the average annual covered earnings of a SAG member is $40,000, at best he was misleading.”
look, editor. first of all – it’s not a good idea to consciously mislead congress? and rosenberg didn’t. he’s not stupid. you may think so – but he’s really not.
second: there’s no “if” – that’s what he said. and it was based on accurate information, because rosenberg is THE PRESIDENT OF THE SCREEN ACTORS GUILD – and you? you edit an anonymous blog…
please.
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Ed. Response – And we let you post anonymously on it. America’s a great country.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
About that $40,000 figure.
Rosenberg did use it in his congressional testimony. At one time I had the transcript and I read the figure there. I no longer have the transcript and I cannot find it online.
However, the $40,000 was not cited as being the average annual earnings for SAG members, as Mr. Fred now claims. It was cited as the average annual earnings for middle class actors, a group Rosenberg defined in that testimony (as has been done elsewhere) as those making enough to qualify for SAG health benefits, but who make less than $100,000 a year. It is not appropriate to use it as a yardstick for the entire union, as the number of individuals who qualify for the “Middle Class” definition usually hovers around only 10-12% of the membership.
In short, Rosenberg used $40,000 as the average annual income for a small subset of the SAG membership. It was not used as Mr. Fred claims it is. His vigorous defense of Rosenberg’s probity before the Congressional committee obscures the fact that the error of citation was Mr. Fred’s, not Rosenberg’s.
And just to prevent this from veering into the weeds of personality, I am not an actor or currently involved in union affairs, although I have been in the past. In that capacity, I met and worked with several of the people who have posted here. I am not using my full name because I would rather have the discussion focus on what is said, rather than who says it.
on good authority:
“$40,00 is NOT the average for a SAG member.
That average would be much lower when comparing every member of the Guild.
What Alan was doing was trying state what the average earnings are for a “working” performer.”
so, “much lower.”
wow.
hey mccabe – how’s that “a teacher would love to make what an actor makes in a bad day” looking?
sorry “in a bad year”