Campaign Watch: MF/Johnson’s Bizarre Response: Attack the Messenger (even if it’s the wrong one)
Membership First’s Anne-Marie Johnson is apparently feeling the heat. Waiting almost 24 hours to respond to the disastrous results in the SAG Pension and Health plans, her comment is a bizarre – and apparently wrongheaded – attack.
Johnson and Membership First claim the real story isn’t that SAG members will see sharply reduced benefits and sharply higher insurance premiums. Instead they’re claiming (apparently wrongly) that the real problem is that the Unite for Strength candidate, Ken Howard, leaked the bad news early. Howard, who isn’t a member of the P&H Trustees, wouldn’t have had access to the information while it was confidential – if it was to be leaked, it would have had to come from inside the Funds.
The first publication we saw of anything from the Trustees’ decision was on a Membership First run BBS system by a Membership First supporter, at 3:38 PM Pacific time, also hours before Johnson claims the news was “officially” released by the Trustees.
The fact is that way the news got out is that the SAG P&H Trustees mailed the bad news to every member and posted it on their website. But that hasn’t stopped Johnson from letting fly with this e-mail, sent only to SAG Hollywood members:
Dear SAG Hollywood Division Member:
Ken Howard, in a serious breach of confidentiality, attained and disseminated confidential SAG Pension and Health Plan information, purely for political gains, prior to its official distribution. Only SAG Pension & Health trustees and the plans’ administrator and staff were privy to this highly sensitive information. Mr. Howard is not a trustee.
In Mr. Howard’s email message sent out to Hollywood members on September 8th at 10:07 a.m. pst, sensitive and confidential plan adjustments, that were not yet posted on the official SAG P&H website, were released. Take 2,SAG’s P&H publication, was not mailed out to SAG members until the evening of the 8th. It has been confirmed by P&H staff that the information prematurely shared by Mr. Howard to our members, had not been posted anywhere prior to the evening of September 8, 2009.
Although MembershipFirst strongly advocates the release of information in a timely fashion, we believe that vital information such as the changes in our P&H plans, must be officially released, adhering to sanctioned guidelines.
As you may have read in the Take 2 2009 Summer edition, the trustees made painful financial and benefit changes in order to adjust to the many challenges facing the Screen Actors Guild plans. As with almost every institution in this country, including AFTRA, our pension and health plans took tremendous hits based on the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. A loss of almost $800 MILLION DOLLARS from investments, record breaking unemployment, the 100 day Writers Strike, the severe decline in movie production based on dwindling financing, the continued surge in reality programming and the loss of pilots to AFTRA has caused the trustees to re-adjust and re-evaluate.
U4S’s presidential candidate Ken Howard has implied that presidential candidate Anne-Marie Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer Connie Stevens and Membershipfirst board members are partially responsible for the critical changes in our plans due to our stance during the 2008 TV/Theatrical Negotiations. We see it differently. We were fighting hard to protect what we had and to secure revenue in areas that could generate millions for our employers. Sadly, there will be little to no contributions made to SAG’s P&H generated from these revenue streams.
Although THEY are placing blame, the 2009 “smart deal” Ken Howard, Amy Aquino, Ned Vaughn and U4S delivered to our membership will have a negative impact on SAG’s P&H plans:
-Loss of P&H contributions due to FREE 17/24 day exhibition windows from move-over of traditional broadcast programs to the Internet/New Media.
-Loss of P&H contributions from Original Product Made For New Media with budgets $15K per minute or less. (NON UNION WORK)
-Loss of P&H contributions due to ZERO residuals from Original Product Made For New Media with budgets $25K per minute or less.
-Loss of P&H contributions due to ZERO residuals for pre-1971 movies and pre-1974 television shows rerun on the Internet/New Media. And so on.
And remember, Ken Howard, Amy Aquino, Ned Vaughn and U4S enthusiastically ENDORSED this contract.Ken Howard, Amy Aquino and U4S believe that a whole sale merger with AFTRA will solve most of our union woes, bringing SAG more leverage in 2011. No merger between SAG and AFTRA will happen prior to the contractually mandated early TV/Theatrical negotiations on Oct. 1, 2010.
Until we have successfully formed one union, representing all actor-performers and all scripted dramatic/comedic programing, SAG must protect its’ jurisdiction.
And unless all other AFTRA contracts, including the Net Code (i.e. Soap Operas) and all contracts covering broadcasters, disc jockys and recording artists, expire on June 30th 2011 along with our TV/Theatrical contract, those members will be obligated to continue working due to the No Strike Clause. They are completely DIFFERENT contracts.And until we can resolve the questions and concerns regarding the combining of SAG’s P&H with AFTRA’s H&R, U4S’s rallying cry for “MERGER” is extremely premature.
The following are examples of the differences in our respective plans: Even with the new changes in SAG’s P&H Plan, SAG’s Plan is different than AFTRA’s. (Take note that AFTRA lowered its Plans rates well before SAG. Is MembershipFirst responsible for that TOO?)-SAG’s pension accrual rate, as of 1/2010, will be 2% of earnings with an annual earnings cap of $225,000 per EMPLOYER. AFTRA’s pension accrual rate is around 1% of earnings with an annual earnings cap of $200,000 per MEMBER.
-SAG’s new Plan I health quarterly premium will be $249 for the member and covering all immediate family members. AFTRA’s premiums start at $330.00 per quarter for the individual member ONLY and up to $633 per quarter for a family of four.
-SAG’s early retirement penalty is 3% per year. AFTRA’s early retirement penalty is 6% per year.
If there were to be blending of our respective plans there would have to be an averaging out of SAG’s terms with AFTRA’s terms, potentially resulting in diminished benefits for SAG participants. (SAG employee retirement accrual rate will remain at 3.5%)Real leverage is SAG and AFTRA adhering to Phase I, jointly negotiating the 2011 TV/Theatrical Contract: speaking in one voice to protect and build on what so many have fought and sacrificed for. MembershipFirst believes this can happen. We believe MEMBERS want this to happen.
MemberhshipFirst and U4S agree on one major issue: SAG work should remain SAG work. When our traditional work moves over to AFTRA, SAG actors are disadvantaged. Especially in the area of P&H.
-MembershipFirst has a plan. Please go to membershipfirst.com to read and view our plans for the future.
We realize that you have been inundated with campaign email messages. There is so much information to share yet limited ways to share it. This is a defining moment for SAG members. With this election we will determine the direction and the future of our union. As National Board Candidate Martin Sheen said, “We can choose the path of least resistance with management compliance or we can choose MembershipFirst and reunite with the spirit of those brave SAG founders and fight to regain and protect the wages, residuals and working conditions for which they fought so long and hard and gave so much to secure.”
Secretary-Treasurer Connie Stevens, the 33 board candidates on the Membershipfirst slate and Presidential candidate Anne-Marie Johnson would appreciate your support. Please VOTE.
Thank you.
Membershipfirst
Erik-Anders didn’t do any better on this e-mail than on the last one.
“attained”? I guess he meant “obtained.” Maybe in Norwegian they use one word for both meanings.
Also, it’s just confusing to see “MembershipFirst” and “Membershipfirst” and “Memberhship[sic] First” and every other permutation of spelling and capitalization.
And when you get to their website, looking for their much-ballyhooed plan, it gets worse: MembershipFIRST!, M1st, and MembershipFirst! all appear there — but nothing even vaguely resembling a plan does.
Hint to the grown-ups at Membership First (if there are any): it’s not always a good idea to put your most enthusiastic member in charge of external communications. Enthusiasm isn’t nearly enough.
“Only SAG Pension & Health trustees and the plans’ administrator and staff were privy to this highly sensitive information. Mr. Howard is not a trustee.”
This was dealt with about 3,000 years ago by Aristotle.
- Only the plans’ trustees, administrator and staff had access to the confidential information.
- Ken Howard is not a plan trustee, administrator or staff member.
- Therefore, Ken Howard did not have access to the confidential information.
This is called logic, Erik-Anders. I know that it seems alien and disturbing to you. But then, you seem alien and disturbing to a lot of folks yourself.
Yep, get out your BIG GI-NORMOUS magnifying glass and LOOK for typos and divert attention!
And come to think about it Stuart…what the heck are you talking about?
This is going to come as quite a shock to Erik and Anne Marie, but the information in the newsletter ceased to be “confidential” long before Ken Howard saw it. There is nothing “sensitive” or “confidential” about plan changes once the Trustees approve the plan changes, which happened in July.
There’s nothing sacred about primacy of publication of the changes in the newsletter or on the P&H website. Once the Trustees vote on the changes, they’re effective. In fact, it would be a breach of legal obligations on behalf of the Trustees and the Funds staff to misrepresent the rules and regulations of the Funds in the event a plan participant asked after the changes were approved.
When you read something like this, ask yourself; “Who is prejudiced by withholding the information from the plan participants.”
The answer is, simply, “No one.” There is no good interest served by keeping the information confidential, therefore it ISN’T confidential.
I believe Anne Marie Johnson knows enough to know this is true and is making baseless accusations, knowing her supporters will repeat her falsehoods without taking the slightest effort to check for themselves. It is already happening on other boards.
Her conduct here is reprehensible, and anyone with the slighest self-respect should repudiate it immediately.
You’d think if there really was “a plan” we’d see it laid out in print, in an email…something. Instead all we see is “go to our website!”
It is the usualy M1st spin – pay no attention to the man behind the curtain….Forget the message, the problem is the messenger.
What Membership First is guilty of – during the stalemate when the economy being to falter they not only ignored that, they told everyone it didn’t matter. The fiddled when Rome began to burn. The gains the were fighting for were so minscule they will never make up for the losses. That’s just bad leadership. Instead of dealing with issues and facts, they’re simply trying to spin it on to Ken.
The TAKE 2 pdf document on the SAG website seems to have been created on August 25th and then modified on August 26th. That’s over THREE WEEKS AGO. Big secret.
TWO WEEKS
You’re supposed to be stunned into marching along by the logo.
At least AMJ has finally figured out that SAG is supposed to start negotiating in October, 2010. It only took her three or four months.
VG
All I can do is laugh! If you all elect AMJ president you deserve what you get. This accusation is just laughable. Whether or not the information was confidential isn’t even relevent. First, the facts are what the facts are. Second, if the information was confidential and Mr. Howard (or anybody else or shouldn’t have it) had it, it would be the trustee or staff member that gave him the info that violated the confidentiality NOT Mr. Howard. So any outrage for leaking the info earlier is misplaced, but then there is no political gain to feign outrage at the trustee members.
Again, all that seems to come out of MembershipFirst these days is hysteria and the smell of burning hair!
Wish I could claim it as my own, but I read this on of the other union bulletin boards:
If Ken Howard’s email was really a “serious breach of confidentiality,” WHY DIDN’T ANNE-MARIE JOHNSON SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT UNTIL 3 DAYS AFTER IT HAD BEEN SENT?
I would LOVE to hear her try answering that one.
Do you have a question or comment for Anne-Marie Johnson?
You can send a question or comment here and she will answer LIVE in a FREE conference call THIS Saturday:
YOU ARE INVITED to JOIN SAG Presidential Candidate Anne-Marie Johnson in a FREE, LIVE, NATIONAL phone conference THIS coming SATURDAY, September 12th.
CALL-IN TIME for your zone in the USA:
1pm——–EASTERN TIME (New York)
12pm——–CENTRAL TIME
11am——–MOUNTAIN TIME
10am——–PACIFIC TIME (California)
(Hawaii and Alaska members: please call in at YOUR appropriate times as they relate to times above)
SEND questions and comments for
Anne-Marie Johnson to answer to:
SolidarityAndGainsNOW@yahoo.com
EVERY question and comment will be answered!
CALL IN NUMBER:
218-862-1000
PARTICIPANT ACCESS CODE:
961283#
(We are organizing this teleconference call on the weekend so peoples’ FREE minutes on their cellphones may apply!)
NOT PAID FOR WITH ANY SAG FUNDS
Good question, Veritas. My guess is that Ken’s email must have gotten lost in the “ton of racist emails” AMJ has to wade through, and she probably only found Ken’s email today.
Say, now that we’re on the subject, didn’t Ken’s email have kind of a racist tone? I mean, he actually criticized a woman of color! AMJ should report it immediately, along with all the rest!
Still drinking the kool-aid:
“Loss of P&H contributions due to FREE 17/24 day exhibition windows from move-over of traditional broadcast programs to the Internet/New Media.
-Loss of P&H contributions from Original Product Made For New Media with budgets $15K per minute or less. (NON UNION WORK)
-Loss of P&H contributions due to ZERO residuals from Original Product Made For New Media with budgets $25K per minute or less.
-Loss of P&H contributions due to ZERO residuals for pre-1971 movies and pre-1974 television shows rerun on the Internet/New Media. And so on.”
what kind of dollars are we talking about? Is it up to the 60-100 million(9-15 million in P&H contributions) that we collectively lost over a year without a contract? and what’s with the no sympathy strike mantra — are they hoping to call a strike regardless of the situation in 2011?
The constant attempt to make the differences the problem is the problem with MF. We have more in common than we have differences: their unwillingness to find a mutual way forward should be an indictment in and of itself. Unite means unite. There is strength in unity. Membership First doesn’t know the meaning of the word unless accompanied by a cudgel to browbeat the dissenters when they can’t win the argument.
I wrote this in response to the current discussion of this topic on Showfax. I can’t post on Showfax because offended Bob, so you guys win. The three MF supporters I quote are directly from their posts in that thread.
If anyone wants to cut and paste this in over there, feel free.
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The punchline to Anne Marie Johnson’s joke is that the information she accuses Ken Howard of leaking was neither confidential nor sensitive at the time of his email, and hadn’t been since the P&H Trustees approved the changes in the plan at their July meeting. After that meeting, any plan participant, including Anne Marie Johnson, could have called the P&H office and they would have been obligated to tell them that there were changes and what those changes were. The information that person received was not confidential or “sensitive.” and could be passed on with no restrictions, as long as what was passed on about the changes was accurate. And yes, Ken Howard’s comments about the changes were accurate.
Anne Marie Johnson, to be blunt, is making completely unfounded accusations about Ken Howard, who had every right to discuss what he already knew because what he knew was neither confidential nor “sensitive.” Anyone who repeats those accusations, or repeats the claims of confidentiality without verifying whether or not it really exusts, is little more than her dupe, and should be ashamed that they allow themselves to be used in such a way.
She’s playing SAG membership for fools, and a sad number are willing to fill the role. Those who believe her have been lied to. They should be embarrassed, but their willingness to believe anything she says is the only thing that keeps her chances alive in this election. If just one of them showed the slightest shred of independent thought and said “maybe I should verify that Ken Howard leaked confidential information.” Not one of them on this forum did.
Ninerfan said “This is far worse than anything Terrence Beasor did that earned him conduct unbecoming charges.”
Except it wasn’t, because Ken Howard didn’t breach any agreement about confidentiality, and neither did the person who gave him the information. And they couldn’t have, because the information just wasn’t confidential. Ninerfan didn’t check on his own. He just jumped on Anne Marie’s bandwagon and was willing to believe whatever she said. That’s sad.
Steven Barr engages in supposition about Trustees agreeing to keep things secret, which is really interesting, but in complete violation of the legal and ethical obligations the Trustees have to the plan participants. He goes on to ask “As far as keeping members in the dark goes — how many people who were eligible for a pension, who could have filed for a pension but decided to hold off did so in the 3-4 days between Howard’s leak and the official notification?” and ” What was lost in a couple days? Pennies? Fractions of pennies?”
And the answers to both questions, which are in the newsletter, is NOTHING. No one lost a cent in benefits. The new accrual rate goes into effect for work on January 1, 2010. More importantly, that new accrual rate only applies to work ON OR AFTER THAT DATE. If you applied on June 30 (before the meeting), August 30 (after the meeting) or January 2, 2010 based entirely on credits earned before January 1, 2010, your benefit is EXACTLY THE SAME (except for the minor adjustment resulting from your age at the time the benefit begins, which the new changes don’t influence.) The level of pure ignorance revealed in Barr’s “answers” are exactly what Anne Marie Johnson is counting on from the dissemination of these falsehoods about “confidentiality.” She needs ignorant people to say ignorant things. She’s getting her way on Showfax.
And that’s why the information wasn’t “confidential.” Because it represented no present harm to anyone, and no one could take advantage of knowing the information before anyone else.
The reason for the delay in issuing the formal notice is simply because of the time it took to write the newsletter which had to be accurate and clearly understandable. It is truly an admirable piece of work, and one of the most lucid explanations of plan changes I’ve ever read Unfortunately, it appears they didn’t count on Mr. Barr still not understanding, because if he had read it, he would have realized how senseless his suggested answers are about what was “lost.”
He then goes on to essentially demand the head of the Trustee who “leaked” the information to Howard. That’s just sad, too. It’s too bad he will be denied his blood vengeance because, well, because nobody did anything wrong.
Erik Anders-Nilsson chimes in with “Ken’s breach seems to be FAR more serious than the trumped up charges against Terrence.”
Passion (in CAPITAL LETTERS) is no substitute for common sense. Did Erik bother to check to see if Anne Marie Johnson had her own facts and law straight?
Nope. Because if he did, he would have learned how far off base she was in making these groundless accusations. Instead, you’ve got the spectacle of a candidate for National Board not only displaying ignorance, but showing a willingness to blindly follow where he should be leading.
Anne Marie Johnson has suckered the three of you into echoing her false accusations for merely political ends. You all should be embarrassed, but I bet you’re not.
Yeah, it used to really piss off Stanley Baldwin that Winston Churchill found out stuff before Baldwin had a chance to spin it too.
Of course, the real problem wasn’t Churchill found out –the real problem was the policies inadequacies in addressing the darkening scene in the first place.
Popular culture has mostly chosen to revile poor Neville Chamberlain for his photo op catastrophe –but Churchill always primarily laid the resulting butcher’s bill at Baldwin’s feet.
This is no more incoherent and nonsensical than that MF gripe (echoed in the Gang of Four lawsuit) that the February written assent was “undemocratic” because the staunch opponents didn’t have a chance to vote “no” on it.
And I have to really laugh at complaints about misuse of “confidential” information after seeing all the palace intrigue that Kent McCord engages in, leaking everything under the sun to Finklette and others.
VG
Thank you Erik – the last one was so successful.
Thanks!
More successful than the NY USAN / Ken Howard ‘meet and greet’ that no one ever talks about.
Aparrantly, Erik, your system does not recognize the snark font in my posting…
And when you go to their website, there’s no plan there, either.
So, apparently, the very act of going to the website must be the plan itself.
The theory may be that if all SAG members go to the website, that will demonstrate complete unity and solidarity in the Guild — ’cause, you know, everyone will be doing the same thing.
I suppose then at the next contract negotiations, AMJ will whip out the Google Analytics report and say, “See? The Guild is 100 percent united behind our plan!” And the AMPTP will fold.
This is like an extreme episode of Arrested Development. Only I don’t think there’s a Michael Bluth in the bunch.
Yup, as I suspected. You don’t understand simple logic.
Let me put it in terms you CAN understand, Erik-Anders.
You may want a cookie. You may want a cookie real, real bad.
But Mommy put the cookies way far high on a shelf, and you can’t reach them, even on your very tippy-toes.
So when Mommy comes in and takes down the cookie jar and finds it empty, and she says to you, “Erik-Anders, you bad, BAD boy! Why did you take the cookies,” what will you say?
“But, Mommy, I didn’t take the cookies!”
And Mommy grabs you by the arm and slaps you across the mouth and says, “You little LIAR! You wanted the cookies! You asked me for one an hour ago and I said you could have one later. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You had to disobey Mommy and steal the cookies, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU?”
And what do you say?
“But Mommy, I couldn’t even reach the cookies, not even on my very tippy-toes. I couldn’t be the one who took them!”
And Mommy — being your Mommy — says, “What does physical impossibility have to do with it? The cookies are missing, and you wanted the cookies — so you must be the thief! Come here, you lying little thief! I am going to wash your lying mouth out with soap until the truth comes out of it!”
“I suppose then at the next contract negotiations, AMJ will whip out the Google Analytics report and say, “See? The Guild is 100 percent united behind our plan!” And the AMPTP will fold.”
That will only work if SAG promises to give all the AMPTP negotiators one of those really cool t-shirts. Maybe the t-shirt IS the plan. They , and their consultants, have clearly put more thought into the shirt than they have into the “plan.”
Back in the day, I spent far too much of my free time at the bar at CBGB’s, drinking on some assistant A&R man’s tab. One of the lessons I learned there that has stood the test of time is this:
“Never Trust A Band With A Logo.”
I think that works here, too.
Fred, that was a clear and powerful rebuttal.
I just can’t imagine anyone journalist covering this story not having read your post. It is truly a must read.
* * * * *
It’s a shame you got kicked off Showfax. I used to read it months ago during the hysterical FunWithNumbers v. Mulhern threads. I’ve stopped since it’s become overwhelmed by too much “Who is Lilly? Who is Phil?” nonsense.
I do take issue with one thing you said in your post. You didn’t merely “offend” Bob; it was my perception that you made him feel threatened (legally?). If I had been the admin, I might have taken similar measures.
I don’t really miss Showfax. My online reading load is lightened sticking to SAGWatch for SAG news. But I hope Fred and others keeps posting rebuttals to things from Showfax and elsewhere.
I suggested to Bob in private emails that he was risking legal liability by allowing Mulhern’s defamatory comments to remain on the board once they had been brought to his attention. He disagreed. What seemed to push him into banning me was when he said (again, privately) that he was tired of dealing with the complaints generated by the board, I suggested that he might not be suited to be a moderator and that he find someone new to take the job. The next morning I was banned. Since the board is his playground, he gets to set the rules and I broke them.
It’s pretty obvious that my time on Showfax had no lasting effect. The dumb people are saying the exact same dumb things they did before I got there. That’s the joy and the curse of the Internet; there’s plenty of good stuff, well written stuff, well thought out stuff around, but the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible.
You’re freakin’ me out dude.
Seeing as you’re a “dude” who gets emotional when misunderstanding perspective in a satirical poster and finds discriminatory slurs where there aren’t any, “freakin’” you out obviously isn’t hard.
“Vote for Erik. He’s Passionate About What He Doesn’t Have A Real Good Grasp On.”
I spent the hour listening to AMJ ‘answer’ questions, including one from me (“How do you reconcile your statements re: AFTRA with your fiduciary responsibility to that Union, especially since you’ve promised – earlier in this call – to give SAG 100% of your effort?”).
I’ll not try to paraphrase her response, except to state that it was slick and non-argumentative – and spoke only of her obligation to ‘all actors’ and not to AFTRA itself.
I should’ve followed up but didn’t. Sorry.
Wendell
Ah, her duty to some nebulous concept of “all actors” transcends the technicalities of fiduciary duty to members of an organization she is supposed to serve.
Great.
It would be interesting to know just when AMJ “attained” access (whether she availed herself of the opportunity or not) to the Take 2 going out to members. I don’t know about SAG, but in a lot of organizations it would be routine to distribute something like that to staff and board before it goes out to membership for the very understandable and unremarkable goal of allowing them to not be surprised by membership questions to them about it when those questions start coming in.
So I have the strong suspicion, which I have no way of proving, that AMJ got it (or possibly email notice of a link to it, whether she further looked at it or not) at the same time Howard did.
–
Admin. Comment – It has long been the practice at SAG (and AFTRA and other unions) to circulate in advance information to the union’s leaders – usually board and committee members – that, when released, is expected have a wide impact on members. This lets the union leadership answer member questions when the news hits, rather than get blind sided.
That certainly happened with the P&H news – but that misses the point. There was nothing confidential about the P&H decision, even before it was officially announced – and even if it had been confidential, Howard’s e-mail does not appear to have been sent before the information was released.
What we have here is Membership First and Anne Marie Johnson being embarrassed by another disaster on their watch. Rather than accept the fact that it happened while they were running the union, they launched an attack to deflect members from the real issue.
So let me get this straight … saying the truth out loud gets you banned on Showfax?
Okay, then, here’s my conclusion:
It is nothing more than a gaggle of those whose mantra is: “Don’t confuse me with the facts; I already know what I believe.”
Welcome to SAGwatch, EVERY opinion, no matter how divergent, as long as you are willing to play by the very sparse rules.
This is what sets SAGwatch apart from the other sites.
And I for one am deeply appreciative.
V.
You must remember, AFTRA members gave Anne-Marie Johnson, more votes than any other candidate, except Jason Priestly.
They must have approved of the way she plans to exercise her fiduciary duties, toward AFTRA members. Otherwise, they would not have elected her with such overwhelming numbers.
–
Admin. Response – The question now is whether their confidence in her – if that’s what the vote represented – was misplaced…or whether she has already betrayed it.
If you “must remember” anything, you “must remember the effect of bullet voting.”
The fact that she got her acolytes to vote for her in a wide open field of candidates is not in anyway a general endorsement of her opinions or positions by the AFTRA electorate, especially when you consider that far fewer than 4,000 votes were cast in LA.
Spin it as you may, but fewer than half the people who voted in LA voted for her. That’s quite a mandate there, Mike, don’t you think?
I will be very interested in hearing you admit that a defeat in the upcoming SAG elections represents a repudiation of the “way she planned to exercise” her duties towards SAG members.
Or will the fact that she finishes second, if she’s lucky, allow you to make the same silly claim of faux-legitimacy as you’re doing here?
I think the root of my problem was that I ticked off Bob at the same time Mattie was pissing him off under multiple concurrent names (“Fred Benson” and “Bobby Maikis,” for two.) According to what Bob told me when we were still speaking, Mattie privately threatened him with all sorts of legal action, physical violence and the usual garbage our Mattie is so famous for. I made it easy for Bob to kill two birds with one stone when I insulted him while all that was going on.
I think Bob was doing the best job he could. I still think he isn’t cut out for the job. He admitted that he didn’t have the time to monitor the union board and only responded to complaints. That’s a dangerous attitude to have when there are folks around like Mattie and Arlin Miller who are clearly willing to say anything without regard to the truth. The Showfax boards are a secondary feature for the real purpose of the website, which is to generate business for Bob. The union board probably seemed like a good idea at the time he started it, but I doubt it brings in any clients for him. He either needs a full-time cop or announce the board is unmoderated and let it sink into a Mulhernian swamp of threats and specious allegations. The half-way measures of ejecting some people and not ejecting others, and repeatedly letting Mulhern sneak back in until there are enough complaints is a recipe for legal disaster.
Bob had the power to ban me, and he did. Bob had the power to ban Mattie, and he did. Repeatedly. Unlike Mattie, however, I don’t have the need to be admitted to a club that won’t let me in, so I haven’t tried to sneak back in like he has (as he had when he was being “Fred Benson” and got thrown out at the same time I did.) I may not like the rules, but they apply to me. Mattie doesn’t share that opinion, which, of course, is a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of voting for him.
Some notes on mechanics.
The specific reports on the status of the Funds investments provided by Segal Advisors and the individual investment managers for the use of the Trustees in July were privileged information. Individual members of the union have no direct right to see this information. Any memoranda produced by Fund counsel, the actuary or Funds staff for use by the Trustees at the July meeting are also privileged.
There is no indication that Ken Howard had access to these documents, and AMJ does not accuse him of revealing any information from those documents. She accuses him of revealing “confidential and sensitive” information that was in the newsletter. This is specious.
She also accuses him of releasing the information through an email that wasn’t “officially sanctioned” as a channel of information by SAG. This is just silly. The newsletter itself isn’t even a formal announcement, which will probably follow in a general mailing to plan participants before the end of the month. When SAG members get that mailing, they will begin to appreciate how good a job was done on the newsletter in making the changes understandable.
AMJ was probably briefed on the results of the meeting immediately thereafter, although she was probably already aware of what those changes were going to be. In an important sense, the Trustees merely ratified what the professional consultants recommended, because there was little choice available.
By the time that briefing was held, the nature of the changes were no longer confidential. Any reticence in transmitting the information at that time was simply to assure that formal communication was accurate, complete and clear, as Funds have been held responsible when newsletter releases conflict with actual substantive changes in the Plans. As previously noted, if someone had called and asked what had happened, the questioner was entitled to an honest answer. The person could not claim the information was confidential, even the day after the meeting.
AMJ’s breach allegations are groundless, and the misrepresentation of fact and law is reprehensible. I’d love to hear Clancy “Reasonable” Brown’s defense of this repulsive conduct, but, of course, I’m not an actor, so I’m not entitled to an explanation. But then, maybe he’ll beg off from offering an opinion because he wasn’t there when it happened, like he did with the “acquiring” motion. That was so convincing.
Fred said:
“I will be very interested in hearing you admit that a defeat in the upcoming SAG elections represents a repudiation of the “way she planned to exercise” her duties towards SAG members.”
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Who says I voted for Anne-Marie Johnson? That is just your assumption. I have assiduously made sure not to endorse any of the SAG presidential candidates, on this blog. I am friends with quite a few UFS members and correspond with them on a regular basis.
I have not decided to vote for Anne-Marie Johnson.
My problem with AMJ is that she is too close to Alan Rosenberg, whom I admire as a person but believe let his idealism distract him from the big picture. The big picture was and is, SAG cannot have achieved more than AFTRA in broadcast TV, because by doing so SAG would have become the more expensive union. The networks will use the less expensive alternative. SAG would’ve been out of TV in three or four years. The fact is rightly or wrongly SAG and AFTRA share jurisdiction in TV. Cheaper wins all the marbles.
I could vote for Ken Howard, though I would like to here how he would run SAG, if there is to be no merger. A merger will probably not happen any time soon. For the two years of his term in which SAG and AFTRA will most likely remain separate, I’d like to know how he will run SAG. Will he weaken SAG? There have been some reports that a UFS candidate thinks that is the best way to accomplish a merger.
Fred Also Said:
“Or will the fact that she finishes second, if she’s lucky, allow you to make the same silly claim of faux-legitimacy as you’re doing here?”
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Finishing second in the SAG Presidential race, is of course quite different than finishing with the second most votes as a candidate for the AFTRA National Board were AMJ’s legitimacy as a Board Member, is not faux at all.
Whichever candidates wins the SAG Presidential election is the only person with any legitimacy or authority.
No one said you’ve ever voted for AMJ, so your attempt to change the subject is a smokescreen.
Again.
You claimed that her vote total in the AFTRA election was somehow important in legitimizing her in terms of public approval (which I said was dubious because she got votes on fewer than half the ballots cast in LA). I asked if you would consider a loss in the upcoming election as a public repudiation of her “platform.”
In short, I was just asking you to be consistent.
I should have known better.