SAG making case for AFTRA merger: Guild pushing issue to its members in magazine
By DAVE MCNARY
May 7, 2010
Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild have the urge to merge with AFTRA — without specifying when that might take place.
SAG’s launching a full-on official push to persuade its 120,000 members combine with the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, devotes a notable portion of the current issue of its SAG Actor quarterly magazine to making the case for merger.
“Since I became president, countless members have asked when we will achieve our goal of a single union for performers,” said president Ken Howard in a letter to members, the first article in the magazine. “The experiences of recent years have given performers valuable insight into the true costs of having separate unions and most actors I’ve talked with have expressed a real sense of urgency about fixing the problem.”
Howard, who was elected last fall on a pro-merger platform, said the protection and services that SAG provides — compensation, contract enforcement, safety, access the health and retirements benefits — can be strengthened by a merger.
At present, there have been no formal steps taken between SAG and AFTRA to take another run at merging.
AFTRA has more than 70,000 members. About 45,000 members belong to both unions.
The SAG Actor magazine, which began hitting member mailboxes this week, also contains a report from the SAG/AFTRA relations task force, which concludes, “By combining our strengths, we can adapt and thrive in a shifting marketplace. By coming together as one, we can more powerfully protect the SAG and AFTRA members who work so hard to turn their inspiration into reality.”
Merger’s not a slam dunk since both unions must approve the proposal by over 60% of those casting ballots. SAG members derailed merger votes in 1999 and 2003 with opponents contending that SAG would lose its unique identity as an actors union and citing the difficulties in combining the health and retirement funds.
SAG First VP Anne-Marie Johnson, a member of the task force, has already hinted she’ll oppose a merger. And she said in her column in the magazine that she opposed the task force report.
“Any talk, from either union, regarding merger or the creation of a ‘new union’ is premature and somewhat presumptuous,” she added. “Neither the task force nor SAG’s national board has held any serious detailed discussions regarding merger since 2004.”
SAG’s merger push comes a month after AFTRA top officers launched a renewed campaign to create a single performers union with national scope.
In a two-page letter to members in the spring edition of AFTRA Magazine, the union’s five top officers laid out a case for why SAG and AFTRA need to join forces to deal with dramatic marketplace changes and to better serve their respective members.
Some SAG members have been strongly opposed to any kind of merger with AFTRA because of criticism that AFTRA has accepted lower wages and less beneficial working terms for actors and performers than SAG. In 2008, there was open warfare between SAG and AFTRA as the two negotiated separate contracts for primetime TV work for the first time in nearly 30 years — leading to AFTRA reaching a deal a year earlier than SAG and signing nearly all new TV series.
The two unions will jointly negotiate the primetime deal starting in October. Howard, who has used his tenure to repair relations with AFTRA, was been named to chair SAG’s negotiating committee in late April.
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