[NEohioPAL] AFTRA/SAG update - FYI

[DALE SHIELDS]

Subject: Read this article to get the best read on what is going on now..
 Andrew
Soloman writes for H'wood Reporter and Backstage (both now owned by
Neilson) and he really seems to have the best version on what is going
on and I love how he identifies the real culprits in this "crime'...its
not SAG as a whole institution, its MemberFirst! Yes! Pin the tail on
the donkey! And here is a little breaking news not published
anywhere that I have found...the Four A's, the advertising agency group
with whom SAG and AFTRA negotiate commercials contracts with have hired
a new negotiator....Greg Hesinger! Who is he? Well, he is the former
Exec Director of AFTRA (and a great guy whom I worked well with during
my tenure as National Treasurer) who was hired by SAG to be their Exec
some few years ago and you may recall that Rosenberg and Memberfirst
pulled a coup on him after he understandably hired three staff members
to run SAG, people he knew and trusted and so Rosenberg had him fired
by staging a meeting where Greg was told everything was going to be
fine, but then they called an Executive Session and got all the
employees to leave the meeting and they voted (memberfirst had the
majority votes in the room) to fire him! He sued and won about a half
million of our dues money, and now SAG and AFTRA will face him during
our comercial negotiations later this year...wonder if he holds any
grudges? Anyway, you heard it hear first. Now here is the Soloman piece:SAG painted into a corner
AFTRA deal, strike authorization not looking good for guild

By Andrew Salomon, Back Stage East

July 1, 2008, 11:00 PM ET

With
its final offer just hours before the screen actors contract expired
Monday night, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers
issued a dare to SAG: Take the deal or go take your strike vote.
 
The
move is backed by two seemingly safe bets: 1) The guild will fail to
defeat the ratification of the proposed primetime TV contract between
producers and AFTRA; 2) It does not have the will or the votes to get
strike authorization from its rank-and-file because they -- and the
rest of Hollywood -- took a financial hit during the 100-day WGA strike.
 
Then again, in an unprecedented year for entertainment labor, anything can happen.

The
AMPTP move "is definitely not standard," said a longtime industry
insider who has worked for labor and management. "I do believe that the
producers are confident that SAG cannot get a strike authorization."
 
As
for defeating the proposed AFTRA deal, SAG faces an equally difficult
task. The federation has about 70,000 members, about 44,000 of which
are dual cardholders. About 26,000, though, are non-SAG members, and it
seems unlikely that those with no loyalty to the guild would be
inclined to reject a deal that their board of directors has
overwhelmingly approved. To defeat the contract, SAG probably needs to
persuade 80% of the joint members -- a steep arithmetic challenge, to
say the least.
 
"Doug Allen comes from football, and this
(anti-AFTRA) strategy is a Hail Mary pass," said Jonathan Handel, an
entertainment attorney. "SAG has backed itself into a corner."

That
is largely, but not exclusively, true. AFTRA is the one that suspended
Phase One, the two unions' joint operating agreement, in part over
allegations that the guild tried to poach its turf for the soap opera
"The Bold and the Beautiful."
 
(Susan Flannery, the actress who
is said to have instigated a possible change in jurisdiction, has
declared that she and a castmate acted on their own. AFTRA has said the
"B&B" fracas was the last straw in a long antagonistic campaign
against the federation.)
 
Still, SAG leaders and its ruling
Membership First party seem to have willingly engaged in a three-front
war -- against AFTRA, its own New York and regional branches and the
producers -- and as a consequence seems to have little leverage left
except to strike. In undertaking this strategy, they appear to have
become the victim of the proverb, "When the gods want to punish us,
they grant us our wishes." The guild majority wanted to get AFTRA out
of the negotiating room, it wanted to marginalize the New York and
regional branches, and it wanted a credible threat of a work stoppage.
 
Wishes granted.

What
SAG leaders really wanted, however, was leverage, and they do not seem
to have much. In fact, they might not even get to strike because the
producers might lock them out.

There is some confusion about
what the AMPTP has given the guild: Is it what is known in labor
negotiating as a "last, best and final" offer, or is it simply a
"final" offer? Sources close to the producers said it is "last, best
and final," while two independent union sources say it is simply a
"final" offer. An actor and one of the strategists during the 2000
commercials strike said, "It is not at all uncommon for either side to
make several 'last, best and final' offers along the way."
 
The
distinction is important. If it is merely a final offer, it gives the
sides some wiggle room. If, however, it is "last, best and final" and
SAG rejects it, the producers legally can declare an impasse and do one
of two things: Impose the terms unilaterally, which Broadway producers
did with stagehands in November, galvanizing an already solid union and
precipitating a 19-day strike; or lock out the actors, a move that one
source said was a distinct possibility, though perhaps not for a few
more weeks.
 
"I'd say they will lock (the guild) out within a
week or two from impasse," said another source, who has a long history
with Hollywood labor negotiations on the union side. "Impasse will
occur the moment SAG rejects the AMPTP's last, best and final offer."
 
The
last question is this: Will the producers' audacious move galvanize a
horribly fractured guild? (Among other things, SAG leaders have denied
New York board president Sam Freed access to the e-mail list of actors
in his own region, keeping him from campaigning for the AFTRA deal,
which would contravene official SAG policy.)
 
The first source,
who has sat on each side of the negotiating process, said that was
unlikely and contrasted Monday's move with the commercials strike of
2000:

"Under normal circumstances, they would be running
precisely the risk that you've identified, but I believe that
Membership First has managed to drive such a deep wedge this time,
there is no way that this offer can bring the factions back together.
Remember, in 2000, there were deep divisions, but the (advertisers) had
rollbacks on the table. It's a whole different ballgame when it's only
a question of how many gains are enough. In this climate, actors won't
authorize a purely offensive strike and the AMPTP knows it." 
 














-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20080703/c59097f8/attachment-0003.htm>