Membership First Starts AFTRA “Trojan” Campaign
Having lost seats on the SAG Board, Membership First is pushing to gain traction in AFTRA. The group has posted a list of its candidates for the AFTRA National and Los Angeles AFTRA Boards, and a handful of candidates for delegate to this summer’s AFTRA National Convention. The names are mostly familiar, including members of the Gang of Four, SAG officers who are suing SAG and the majority of the SAG National Board, one individual who has publicly discussed “destroying” AFTRA, and at least one producer (whose name isn’t even spelled right on the Membership First site).
We haven’t yet seen publicity from AFTRA’s incumbent slate, the “AFTRA Leadership Team, but their website seems to be in disarray.
More like the “Trojan Rabbit” campaign in Monty Python and the holy grail where they forget to hide inside the giant wooden rabbit and are standing outside the gates discussing their strategy when the Giant rabbit gets catpulted back at them over the wall.
Here they come – shhhh….it’s a SUPRISE ATTACK!
lmao
If the so called trojan horse candidate are elected, which I would not find the least bit surprising, it will be because of the direction that AFTRA’s leaders have taken it in the last couple of years.
Actors I know did not hate AFTRA with the boiling passion that some do today. This rage, has be brought upon AFTRA by the New York based group known as AFTRAnow. It might well lead to the destruction of AFTRA as a union. It was caused by many things, firstly using the excuse that the 24p digital camera meant longstanding jurisdictional lines did not exist anymore. Secondly offering producers, actors at lower rates, in order to gain jurisdiction. The last straw was the go-it-alone contract negotiation that AFTRA undertook, thereby undermining SAG’s negotiation posistion.
Actors feel betrayed by AFTRA. Some want revenge and some just want AFTRA to go back to doing the fine job it use to do, representing actors in sitcoms(which seem to be enjoying a resurgence), live broadcast and soaps.
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Ed. Comment – That’s been a staple of Membership First rhetoric over the past four years. While it might be true of some actors in Hollywood, others would point out that the majority plainly rejected that view as recently as the last Hollywood Board SAG elections, in which the people who took that position were ejected from their SAG board seats.
Anyone who has worked with AFTRA elected leaders and/or staff knows the integrity with which they run that organization. That is the reason they continue to move forward with great success.
I take absolutely no pleasure in saying this:
It’s no secret: Movie producers are BEGGING AFTRA to sign their projects, at ‘whatever rate you say,’ because they are sick to the teeth of working (using that term loosely) with a ‘company’ (SAG) who seem not to 1: Know, or 2: CARE about the actual business that’s supposed to be conducted on behalf of the membership.
There were comments on another thread here where the poster mentioned calls made to the LA SAG office and the employees they spoke with seemed clueless, and had no idea hwo to help them.
Sadly that is not unusual.
It’s not the employees’ fault. Up to this last election, and for the past several years, all the employees with any institutional memory were either run off or fired. The one person we have left who knows how to get us “from here to there” is John McGuire.
But the very people who have made a shambles of SAG, and who are attempting to infiltrate AFTRA, are the ones who would like to get rid of John as well.
Does the term “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” mean anything to anyone? In SAG it’s happened over and over and over again.
Jee-zus.
V.
Time to get novelty condom packets printed up with the names of the Trojan horse candidates: “Is [this candidate] a Trojan?”
Re: # 4
So AFTRA is talking with producers behind SAG’s back about raiding SAG’s exclusive jurisdiction over movies?
“It’s no secret: Movie producers are BEGGING AFTRA to sign their projects”
So AFTRA is doing what they accused SAG of doing with “The Bold & The Beautiful”?
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Ed. Comment: Don’t be silly. AFTRA has always told producers who come to them with film projects that the producer needs to call SAG.
Sorry, but of these stated goals of the candidates, which do any of you find objectionable in any way?
*Complete Transparency Regarding contracts-AFTRA members should be allowed to view the contract of any AFTRA show, at any time. Especially BEFORE we audition and/or accept a role on an AFTRA show.
*No undercutting-We would like AFTRA and SAG to cooperate and work together to improve rates and working conditions, not have one union “go in early” and undercut the other union. We encourage honest conversations about AFTRA/SAG relations.
*Our goal is to help AFTRA do a better job representing actors. Competition between acting unions only hurts actors. We need to work together to raise wages and working conditions-not to compete in a race to the bottom-that only benefits our employers.
And vested-I’m not sure what planet you are living on, but the reality is the exact opposite of what you state regarding the helpfulness of employees in AFTRA and SAG. “Clueless” describes the AFTRA employees perfectly. They’ll give answers to your questions; problem is they are completely wrong. If you call AFTRA to ask if it’s okay to do non-union film or theatre work if you are only an AFTRA member, you will likely be told you can because it’s not in AFTRA’s jurisdiction. This is, of course, false.(Little did I know at the time that you could actually do n/u work under AFTRA’s jurisdiction and they wouldn’t care less anyway!) No one I ever talked to at AFTRA had any clue how their payment plan worked, either. SAG’s employees at least try to do things right. SAG’s service has been great in recent years because you actually get to talk to someone, thanks in part to the staff increases under Doug Allen. I expect the service aspect to decline with the layoffs David White has made.
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WW Response: The “goals” seem fine – and not one of them is actually a goal – they’re already in place. But that’s just what the Membership Firsters put on the website, not what they’ve said in their own words over and over. Robert Amico? Give me a break. Go look at his statements about AFTRA. He makes Justine Bateman look like a moderate.
On the AFTRA employees – you’d need to be a lot more specific than just say something like “they’re clueless” or wrong. They’re the ones who have negotiated the contracts for the past year while SAG was snarled in Allen-mania. They’re the ones whose members are working.
SAG customer service? Remember how pissed off Doug Allen was when he couldn’t even get the phone answered? Even by adding to the payroll that problem barely has been addressed.
Matthew, #7
i just have to comment on your post. One of the MF listed goals is:
*No undercutting-We would like AFTRA and SAG to cooperate and work together to improve rates and working conditions, not have one union “go in early†and undercut the other union. We encourage honest conversations about AFTRA/SAG relations.
This is such a misrepresentation of the truth. The people who state this as a goal (MF) are the very people who’s actions caused the rift in the first place. For well over a year they did everything they could to undermine the Phase 1 negotiations, including: efforts to instate block voting, reapportionment of the committee under Phase 1 agreement, anti-AFTRA articles in the SAG magazine, a motion to end Phase 1 altogether, and finally the Bold & Beautiful incident (etc.)
THEN, after all that, AFTRA finally had enough, and decided to not negotiate under Phase 1.
BUT, AFTRA did NOT, even after all that, “go in early” No. They let SAG go in first. After several weeks (I could look up exact dates), they agreed to let SAG have an EXTENSION of time to complete a contract. It wasn’t until after all this that, under their own time constraints, AFTRA went into negos w/ the AMPTP.
I’m sorry, Matthew, that you’ve been fed these lies to the point you believe them to be true.
H.
I guess the Cult is just trying to make Justine’s quote come true:
“AFTRA is a scumbag union”.
Don’t let it happen.
I hear they have sand=papered their fingerprints off, too.
MF wants to gain power in AFTRA for 2 reasons…..because they see that their losing seats in SAG nd they need to justify themselves somehow…..and because they absoultely hope to destroy AFTRA from within. These very same people have launch attacks against AFTRA for years – including spending over $150k of SAG funds to try and defeat the AFTRA contract….Have they changed their spots? Are they now so supportive of AFTRA that they want to spend time on the board to help them?
Just remember to tell all your AFTRA friends the reality….question their motives…question how they could have the time to serve both boards….and ask these trojan candidates how serving on both boards does not create a confilct of interest….soemthing they have been decrying for years.
Also remind everyone….Angel Thompkins did this…goet elected, and tried to do damage within….she was brought up on charges and kicked out of the union.
# 8
Oh c’mon.
You really believe SAG was trying to raid “the bold and the beautiful”? get real.. You are calling the actors on the show are liars.
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Admin. Comment – That’s right. Some of them lied after the fact. Shocking, isn’t it. (end sarcasm font)
Hey, Mike,
What is it that actors do for a living?
That’s right….lie, (though they get to call it acting and get ppaid for it).
Wake up, man.
#11
Hmmmm, interesting that you should single out the B&B incident in you response.
OK, for the sake of argument, let’s take that out of the mix. After all it was only….. well, I started to say “the icing on the cake,” but more accurately it was “the cherry on top of the icing on the cake”
You seem to miss the point that AFTRA did not “go in early.” It’s a talking point that just doesn’t hold water.
The thing I find ironic about all of these machinations by the MF crew, is that the party faithful who followed their dear leaders’ instructions about, oh, 8 months ago, all gave up their AFTRA cards, and now won’t be able to vote them in.
dr. giggles,
then i guess we should ask gabrielle carteris how it is that she has the time to sit on both the SAG and AFTRA boards. which she does.
do you think we should ask her to pick one board or the other?
and michael,
i don’t believe very many dual card holders renounced their AFTRA membership.
Membership First is the only entity that complained about members serving on both unions’ Boards.
No one else.
Now for them to come out with this “we only want to improve the union” horse twonkey
is hubris, mendacity, and hypocrisy rolled into one large toxic enchilada.
These Membership First candidates not only deserve to be kicked to the curb by AFTRA members
they should be permanently removed from SAG governance by SAG Hollywood members this Fall.
You are dreaming, Tom, if you think that will happen. I have been to Town Hall meetings and board meetings and have seen firsthand the support that the membership has for MF ideals. Included in the list of candidates they support to go to the AFTRA convention are several independent people unaffiliated with Membership First in any way, such as Rico Bueno, John Cygan, Ian Abercrombie, and David Hillberg. They, like many others, realize that AFTRA comes up short in several ways when it comes to representing actors. MF and like-minded individuals do not want to destroy AFTRA, but rather ensure that actors are not the unwitting victims of union political games. The best way to guarantee this is for SAG to have jurisdiction over all television, and have AFTRA revert to AFRA. Not a merger that would be a disaster when it comes to trying to merge health plans. If this were put to a vote of SAG/AFTRA cardholders it would pass.
Well, of course! The best way to stop union political games is for one union’s radical faction to infiltrate the other union and try to get it to dismantle itself (by giving up jurisdiction over all TV). Why, there’s no AFTRA member alive that wouldn’t jump at that proposal.
I bet David Hillberg invented the strategy. No, wait — I remember! Matt Mulhern used to trot out this chestnut.
It would be nice for both unions to fight for the best contract possible .AFTRA in my view could have waited for a week or two so SAG could have put their two cents in during the negotiations.
As for party lines and politics ,they can have them selves ,high school cliques and mentalities.
Unions like’ governments’ are to protect the workers ‘citizens’ from abuses, not cause them.
either SAG or AFTRA ect. as for inventing strategy it has been done long before any of us were born..
do not give me the credit. You can read about all the strategy you want..
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Admin. Comment – Perhaps you’re forgetting that AFTRA waited several months to allow SAG to negotiate first. The Allens failed to achieve a contract.
David,
You are mistaken on the actual negotiation history.
After the collapse of Phase 1, SAG asked AFTRA if it could go first in the separate negotiations. AFTRA agreed.
Not having reached a settlement with the AMPTP in the alloted time, SAG asked AFTRA for an extension, saying, as I recall, that they were “hours away” from a settlement. AFTRA agreed again.
It was only after SAG failed to deliver a settlement and AFTRA’s own contract was close to running out that AFTRA started its own negotiations.
It’s pretty clear SAG had more than ample opportunity to put in their “two cents.” Given what actually happened in SAG during the negotiations, do you seriously think a “week or two” more would have made any difference? It took SAG nine more months, and a change of leadership to even restart serious negotiations.