ACTORS UNANIMOUS IN THEIR
SUPPORT FOR STRIKE AUTHORIZATION
Special Report From the Creative Youth News Team
October
19, 2008
This afternoon, as Anne-Marie Johnson, the 1st Vice President of the
Screen Actors Guild, asked for a showing of which members of Screen
Actors Guild supported a strike authorization, all present at the
National Membership Meeting stood and applauded for more than five
minutes. In the front row, board member Frances Fisher jumped
on
her chair and turned to the membership to rally the troops in support.
The support was not just for a strike authorization. While
waiting to be let in the door in the
upper lobby of the Marriott on Figueroa in Los Angeles,
actors and actresses discussed the need for and importance of an actual
strike.
The meeting opened with a full-house of members and standing ovations
for the executive board members. Alan Rosenberg, Anne-Marie
Johnson and Pam Fair were especially popular with the
members.
Youth actors and actresses remember that it was Pam Fair and Alan
Rosenberg who encouraged a motion for the Screen Actors Guild to
support the lowering of the voting age in 2006. One of the
members of the Creative Youth News Team brought the motion.
Anne-Marie
Johnson and the executive board members at that meeting has been
strongly supportive of the idea and the motion passed by more than a
three to on margin. The hard work, in defense of
actors'
rights and benefits, of Alan Rosenberg, Pam Fair and Anne-Marie Johnson
has brought them the respect and admiration of SAG members,everywhere.
Mike Hodge and Connie Stevens, the latter of whom is the
Secretary-Treasurer
for SAG, were also popular with the crowd. Connie Stevens
starred in Hawaiian
Eye
with Michael Eisley and Robert Conrad from 1959 to 1963 and was the
subject of frequent positive references from older actors and actresses
during the question and answer session. Also, getting a huge applause
was former executive board member Kent McCord, who went to school with
an uncle of one of the writers here at Creative Youth.
One other issue was unanimously supported by all the members
present. That was opposition to the tiered rights suggestion
that
the United For Strength group has been pushing. A motion
demanding the board take no action of any kind to limit rights based on
earnings or jobs without a specific vote of the membership passed
without objection. Prior
to the meeting, members in the lobby has been expressing outrage over
misleading election that had allowed six United for Strength members to
be added to the board. It
was
felt that the United for Strength members has used their money to send
out false and misleading literature.
Among other liberties with the truth, fliers falsely made it appear
that United for Strength supported the strike and that Membership
First, didn't. The truth was the exact opposite though all board
members present in the audience stood in support of the strike
authorization. It was also noted that Tom Hanks,
Sally Fields, and other high priced actors who want to remove voting
rights and benefits from 90% of the membership never show up at
membership meetings and never do anything to support the other members
of the Screen Actors Guild. There was a clear resentment in
the
room against the small number of actors who want all the rights while
contributing nothing to the Guild. The support for the motion
was
so strong that it passed by acclamation. Nobody in the room
supported the United For Strength position on this issue, not even the
couple of United for Strength board members who showd up at the
meeting.
Pam Fair pointed out that, though the Screen Actors Guild avoided
taking election positions, it had taken a stand on one of the
California Propositions. The Screen Actors Guild opposes
Proposition 8. Proposition 8 seeks to overturn the Supreme
Court
ruling that discrimination against gays in marriage is
unconsitutional. SAG opposes 8 to protect the privacy of
actors and actors.
On SAG contracts, actors have to list their marital status.
If
they were single but part of a civil union, they would have to call
this to the attention of the studio and fill out a separate
form.
Instead of being able to hide their status as gay or straight, actors
would have to declare their status in connection with each job uner
Proposition 8. After the discussion ended, someone at
the back of the room began to yell some vulgar comments that had
something to do with his religion. These comments were mostly
incoherent. It was believed that he might have been
supportive of
Propsition 8, but no one knew for sure. He was escorted from
the
room.
Alan Rosenfeld pointed out that under the proposed contract, the
studios could completely undercut or cut out union workers with
respect to jobs and residuals. If a line in the sand is not
drawn
now, actors and actresses will have no rights and will not be in a
position to ever have any rights. This is even dangerous for
upcoming actors and actresses, as job and income security will be a
thing of the past with the current contract proposals.
One matter for concern, involves current changes by the board to health
care benefits. Currently an actor or actress has to earn
$15,000
per year to be covered for health care. The board had snuck
in a
change to $21,000 over a multi-year period. In this economy,
it
seems rather unconscionable to make it harder for actors to be covered
on life and death matters like health care coverage. This is
the
sort of change that the elite group of actors running the United for
Strength group have been pushing to create. SAG members felt
that
the Guild might benefit more if the United for Strength actors became a
little less elite and a little more human.
Throughout the meeting, the audience applauded support for both a
strike authorization and for a strike. There was also
tremendous
support for the idea of actors going into the production business and
competing with the producers who were trying to take away their rights.
Copyright
©2008 by the Creative
Youth
News Team. All rights reserved.
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