Fierce opposition from hundreds of high-profile celebrities has prompted the SAG brass to postpone a controversial strike authorization vote in January. Voting was originally set to begin on Jan. 2nd, but now it won’t begin until Jan. 14th. Executive Director Doug Allen—together with SAG President Alan Rosenberg—hopes to use the delay to further educate the membership about the negotiations and to unify the now divided organization.
“While almost 100 high profile members and 2,524 total members have endorsed the strike authorization vote mandated by the National Board, more than 100 high profile actors and 1,373 actors have lent their names to the opposition campaign,” said Allen in a statement posted on the SAG website late Monday. “This division does not help our effort to get an agreement from the AMPTP that our members will ratify.”
Allen and Rosenberg scheduled a special National Board meeting on Jan. 12 to address the divide. In the last few weeks, two factions have emerged in favor and against next month’s strike vote, with A-listers like George Clooney signing a Vote No petition while celebs like Mel Gibson signed another one urging a yes vote. Seventy-five percent of “dues current” members must authorize a strike before the National Board can actually call for one.
SAG has been working without a contract since June. The massive actors’ union and the conglomerates remain far apart over issues involving production for new media, including TV webisodes.
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You know any union has outlived it’s usefulness when they want to call a strike in this economic climate.
Well; who is going to help me negitiate keeping my job and food on the table for my family. SAG should disband
SAG once again shows it is out of touch with reality by even considering a strike in these times. Another strike will essentially prove to be a strike against its own members, many of whom are furious their dues are being used as a grudge match war chest by Rosenthal and Allen. Many dual card members are also privately furious at SAG’s envious treatment of AFTRA, a far easier union with which to deal.
A week ago I predicted to an agent that 2009-2013 will see the Screen Actors Guild either change or be destroyed. I stand by that forecast. As a producer now working with AFTRA, I have a bad feeling many good, hard-working SAG actors will be hurt badly by the crisis the next strike creates. Losing their homes, unable to feed their children, these actors will confront SAG demanding their dues back, or some financial assistance. SAG will of course claim 0 responsibility and shut them out.
That’s when the actors finally walk out en masse, and SAG finally dies.
Good riddance.
RDK proves my comment.
Stand up for your rights. A real union protects its members, not its soiled reputation. SAG cares nothing for you and what comes around goes around. Now you see how nasty they’ve been all along. Before it was only us producers and studios on the receiving end of it. How do you guys like your “union” now?
AMPTP knew this all along and we tried to tell you people.
If they’re going to annihilate all your sources of income and alienate employers against you in their name, then they need to provide you some income and insurance while they’re doing so. Or what are your dues for, exactly?
Hold SAG to the line and make them make amends to OUR SHARED INDUSTRY. They’ve played the lone wolf arrogant bully bad boy long enough and people are starving for it. Stand up for your rights, demand your dues back and put them in their place. It’s us and you who make this industry, not them. They’re interlopers –
Kick them out.
Here’s a picture of what SAG is like: picture a 22 year old independent producer, single female with a kid, who’s $1,500,000 in debt to her family and all her friends, and has maxed out three credit cards putting together a small film she believes in about her grandmother’s triumph over a handicap and immigration to America. The young woman has waited tables six years and sacrificed her life and happiness, and jeopardized relationships with her family and friends, to make this piece of art. SAG believes that she is evil because she is a producer. She must also be rich, because “all producers are rich”. According to SAG, even though a name star believes in her picture and wants to star in it, a) the star is prohibited from doing so and will be blacklisted and punished if he does, b) no waiver will be granted allowing him to accept payment later once the film is made, and c) although the producer makes nothing per week, the actor gets $2700 per week, or screw off.
Isn’t SAG nice.
SAG should be looking at the other Unions as a guide. The United Auto Workers are giving back benefits to the Auto industry just to stay in the game.
SAG really needs a wake up call from its members!! No other unions are creating such a negative environment for their members at this time. No amount of time or money will change the damage that SAG has done to its reputation. The SAG negotiators have failed to do the job. They really need to remove themselves now before they completely destroy the Screen Actors Guild as we know it now.
Please leave!!!
The industry hasn’t recovered from the writer’s strike – many shows lost their ratings & have struggled to get them back to pre-strike levels. I think the SAG, if they were smart, would delay any strike (perhaps permanently) not only to the fact that the industry is still recovering… but also to the fact that the economy on the whole is struggling. Imagine getting sympathy from people that lost their jobs, their house, etc…
that’s REALLY bad PR.
It’s 75% of those who VOTE who authorize the strike.
If they strike this town is F-ed and I hope all the actors who vote “yes” suffer the most. These are very tough times for people in all industries. The PR alone will make average people hate them more.
Go ahead! Strike! Actors, polish up your table-waiting skills again! I think this strike would have a very profound effect on the entertainment industry because of the fact people haven’t gotten over the writers’ strike. I’m hoping the average American will then get off their butts and boycot the entertainment industry’s greed and pompous attitude of throwing the fans and viewers under the limo in the name of greed. Welcome to the REAL world, actors… table 9 needs more bread, because they can’t afford a whole meal!
Non-AMPTP producers should form the Producers Guild of America and refuse to start any further motion picture or television projects whatsoever until SAG is disbanded. No more TV shows, no more films. We’ll see how long actors last.
So much of this is predicated on SAG calling the craft of acting “work” and pretending it’s “difficult”.
If that is the case, why am I as a producer and director consistently so much better at nailing the lines of a script first take and showing up on time undrugged, sober and professional, and my SAG actors have mostly done the opposite? Acting isn’t “work”, it’s play: playing dress-up and assuming a different persona, one of the most fun things in the world, and even toddlers know it. Why do actors get paid so much to “play” – millions in salaries – but writers, directors and producers barely earn enough to survive? Ever see a DP earn what Jack Nicholson does? Mel Gibson? How about an IATSE carpenter, does HE make what Lindsay Lohan does? Oh I forgot: the DP, producer and carpenter all show up sober on time with no drama.
Some unions are more equal than others I guess.
You Morons who are using the bad economy as a reason NOT to strike are ignorant of the fact that this Union was founded in the Great Depression. Those Actors were still willing to go on strike for what they believed was fair for working Actors. There were friggen soup lines on every street corner and you people are worried because you might not be able to buy a 54″ Plasma TV. Take my advice and go ask the Producers if they will buy you that TV for christmas..you idiots!
Ah John, the typical foul-mouthed rage-a-holic SAG Wurlitzer, spraying derogatory names across ordinary people reading here because they fail to get why your profession deserves special treatment this year and theirs doesn’t. Newsflash, John, I’m a producer. I can’t afford to buy the average American a TV set because I’m too busy paying you four digits a week plus health and pension to run around on a set with a plastic gun.
And especially vicious is your inbuilt presumption that the American television viewer is somehow below or beneath you as an actor and us as producers. The average American isn’t some “idiot” whimpering over a plasma TV; he’s not like you. He’s scared wondering how he’s going to feed his wife and she’s working three jobs worrying about how to feed her children. See folks? SAG actors don’t get it. They make fun of you and have no idea what your lives are like. This is what happens when you spend your existence in limousines eating macrobiotic craft service food and soliciting paparazzi attention 24/7 instead of working two or three jobs and suffering hard to make ends meet – which is how ALL producers start out despite what actors may lie and tell you. Google the names of indie producers. Wiki them, read their life stories. None of us started out rich or famous and none of us is now. Guaranteed Sherry Lansing made less than Ashton Kutcher does, and that is a stone cold FACT. SAG LIES.
The producer’s opinion: the average American is sick and tired of reality programming, but we can’t provide it to him and her because SAG demands actor salaries remain artificially high so member dues can be tentpoled just as high and keep the union well funded. American viewers are intelligent, well-informed, discriminating and hard-working, and are going through HELL right now. Now more than ever they need quality entertainment.
The SAG actor’s opinion: morons and idiots who want a plasma TV.
Welcome to real Breakdown Services, folks. There’s the difference, can’t make it plainer.
And the problem isn’t unions. We have no problem with unions. Production gets along with AFTRA, IATSE, the DGA and Musicians’ Locals just fine. The problem is greed. WGA and SAG are out of control and we’re not going to sacrifice our balls to either.
I agree with the poster. Acting is play, producing is risk, everything else is work. How dare you insult the American viewer like you did.
Bad idea to strike. Another strike would do even more damage to the TV and Movies and during this economy is not a good idea.
Actors make more than writers. Actors make more than directors. Actors make more than producers. Actors make more than set designers. Actors make more than set builders. Actors make more than drivers and driver captains. Actors make more than studio receptionists. Actors make more than hair and makeup artists. Actors make more than grips. Actors make FAR more than musicians. Actors make more than models. Actors make more than anybody. Actors make more than YOU do reading this. The Screen Actors Guild keeps things this way by lying to you and to the media that all producers are rich, evil and out to get them, and that all producers make more than actors do. Do the math. It’s a lie. Your kid doesn’t get $2675 per week to play dress up at the Christmas recital, so why should pampered stars? Besides, neither will your kid pose naked on a magazine cover because he thinks he is special for some reason. Think about all the Hollyweird stories you’ve seen. NAME ONE PRODUCER ACTING THAT CRAZY.
No one out there in the rest of America (dare I say the real America) cares about any of this. They just laugh and shake their heads in bemused pity. Another example of Hollywood types so out of touch with reality that they think this issue is really important.
Do it. Name one producer or director caught partying coked-up or on meth or alcoholic somewhere, messing up a show or a feature. Name one producer or director who has ever posed naked for a magazine or adopted a third world infant for photo ops. Name one producer, director or even WRITER represented by CAA who consistently earns a $25 million per picture salary. Name just one. Come on, SAG. We’re waiting. And now name an actor who has done any of the above. I in fact can name an actress who has done all three. In fact, name a Scientologist producer, director or writer. Can’t do it? Now name an actor.
I notice how all those George Clooneys and Danny DeVitos out there , are sooo worried about the effects a strike will have on the struggling Actors, during these bad times. Why should they be so concerned? They will do just fine with all the money they made being a SAG member all these years. Perhaps the real reason is the fact that they are Producers as well. I personally believe their position is a conflict of interest and they should recuse themselves from the debate. Perhaps they should not even vote.
The members of SAG are not entitled to any additional revenues the studios make through the internet or some new stream. They’re all work for hire and bear none of the risk the studios (who are financing these projects) do. If a movie or tv show breaks the bank, the actors want more money, but I don’t hear any of them offering to pay back the studios when they’re projects go belly up. The studio ends up losing money and the actors move on to the next thing unscathed. If they want more money, they should put up their own money and become equal partners in the projects they invest in.
James L. Howlett nailed it. It’s all about the risk. Producers assume it all and actors assume none. Yet actors demand the lions’ share of salaries and residuals for assuming none of the risk, and seem at SAG to share this peculiar Marxist hallucination that as potential employers all of us are fat-cat robber barons perched upon sacks of money with comical $’s on them. John below continues the harangue, even attacking Danny DeVito for his money and attributing it (again magically) to his also being a dreaded “producer”. I LOVE how being a producer magically makes me rich! When does that kick in, I wonder? Probably about the time I decide to starve myself, pose for cameras, recite someone else’s hard-created lines, call myself an Actor and join SAG. With typical A lister salaries consistently topping $20 mil, SAG acting is clearly where the money is. Yet we and America are wrong to question this. Gosh imagine that.
So Danny DeVito and George Clooney are no longer actors because they are producers and should not even be entitled to vote. I wonder what Messieurs Clooney and DeVito observed or experienced to turn them less than warm towards paying excessive salaries to SAG actors? They themselves are still SAG actors, so whatever they saw as producers must have been CONVINCING INDEED to make them take such an objective position against their own field. Becoming a producer doesn’t suddenly make your tongue turn serpentlike and morph you into a bipedal demon reptile, so SOMETHING they saw changed their minds about THEIR OWN PROFESSION. Gee John, I wonder what it was?
What actors fail to understand is becoming a producer is like growing out of teenager into an adult. When you are a teenager, being given 24/7 access to an expensive sportscar, alcohol and drugs seems completely right, fair and good. Using a condom is a drag. Then you grow up and have a teenager of your own and see with *lysergic sudden clarity* why teenagers should be given no such thing. Actors always think being paid more by producers and studios than everybody else is right, fair and good – until they become producers and start studios of their own. Then sudden parental clarity strikes. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford were no different. It was all about “fair pay for work” and “actors’ solidarity” until they started UA and looked at the payroll and said “WTF?” With that, my rant is ended. I have a show to produce. The show in question happens to be AFTRA. AFTRA believes actors should make exactly what I make as a producer, and not a cent more. To me, this is right, fair and good.
I am not an actor, nor a producer. I am just an American citizen who lives and works in the entertainment industry in LA. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but the writer’s strike paralized the industry because they stopped writing and there were no scripts to produce. They settled and now they are writing again and there are scripts. If the SAG actors strike, the producers can hire non-union talent and still produce the scripts that the writers have written – utilizing the union folks that did have the sense to negotiate contracts. Let the SAG actors strike and give the thousands of non-union actors a shot and keep all the other thousands of tech people, caterers, limo drivers, and everyone else that suffered during last year’s awards season working as well? Then again, maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but it sure makes sense to me.
SAG is a bunch of whiners. While every self-employed person takes pay cuts and pays the lion’s share of every tax known to man, these hacks want more? We need a new technology to eliminate them if they are this greedy.
Folks, I’m a member of all the above listed guilds. I’ve worked in front of the camera, and behind it, extensively. For all the rampaging from various contributors to this thread, the bottom line is that there are real problems with the system, on both ends. As an indie film producer, I can say without equivocation that SAG is hands down the worst organization with which to deal in pre-pro. I’ve dealt with mistaken identity, and had SAG pursue one of my productions for residuals on a show we never produced. SAG’s approach is absolutely militant. But when you look at way the industry is structured, how can you blame them?
It is untrue that most actors are fat-cats who make money to simply play. Acting is, without a doubt, the hardest job in entertainment. I say that, having done all of them. If it were so easy, then these people who disrespect and taunt actors for their ridiculous salaries would be up there doing it themselves, and for the same money. Producers who criticize
Folks, I’m a member of all the above listed guilds. I’ve worked in front of the camera, and behind it, extensively. For all the rampaging from various contributors to this thread, the bottom line is that there are real problems with the system, on both ends. As an indie film producer, I can say without equivocation that SAG is hands down the worst organization with which to deal in pre-pro. I’ve dealt with mistaken identity, and had SAG pursue one of my productions for residuals on a show we never produced. SAG’s approach is absolutely militant. But when you look at way the industry is structured, how can you blame them?
It is untrue that most actors are fat-cats who make money to simply play. Acting is, without a doubt, the hardest job in entertainment. I say that, having done all of them. If it were so easy, then these people who disrespect and taunt actors for their ridiculous salaries would be up there doing it themselves, and for the same money. Producers who criticize
Folks, I’m a member of all the above listed guilds. I’ve worked in front of the camera, and behind it, extensively. For all the rampaging from various contributors to this thread, the bottom line is that there are real problems with the system, on both ends. As an indie film producer, I can say without equivocation that SAG is hands down the worst organization with which to deal in pre-pro. I’ve dealt with mistaken identity, and had SAG pursue one of my productions for residuals on a show we never produced. SAG’s approach is absolutely militant. But when you look at way the industry is structured, how can you blame them?
It is untrue that most actors are fat-cats who make money to simply play. Acting is, without a doubt, the hardest job in entertainment. I say that, having done all of them. If it were so easy, then these people who disrespect and taunt actors for their ridiculous salaries would be up there doing it themselves, and for the same money. Producers who criticize
…(continued from lower comment) Producers who criticize actors with such hatred, with such avarice, are simply bitter. Those who don’t see the magic and value in truthful acting might consider taking some time away from the industry that has so damaged their perspective on the value of the process to which they, the embittered producer, is, him or herself, contributing.
Yes, exorbitant pay creates monsterous behaviours. Lavish attention, the kind that distorts reality for these youngsters who come-in ill-equipped for the limelight, will always have a negative impact. But producers themselves often encourage this behavior, because it feeds into an ideal, a fantasy, of what it means to be famous, that props up an entire tabloid industry that, in turn, feeds attention to the producer’s final product. Producers are divorced from this issue; they are, at the end of the day and despite stories they may tell to themselves about their lives, often propagators of it. (cont.)