The Screen Actors Guild members voted to merge the acting unions of SAG and AFTRA.
SAG’s announcement, as it appeared on the homepage of SAG’s website. (Exactly the same was what opened on AFTRA’s homepage.)
SAG’s elected representatives were all pro-Merger, and had waged a very expensive campaign to get the professional actor members of the Screen Actors Guild, to vote for the merger of SAG and the other competing actors union, AFTRA.
Equity (AEA) is another actor union, but they were not, at any time, in competition with SAG.
My comments that I left on Facebook when I heard the news about the merger vote result.
First is from Hollywood Actor Prep Facebook Page. (Click on it to open in new page and “Like” please.)
I avoided writing about SAG-AFTRA’s merger vote/referendum, after seeing the writing on the wall…and after discovering some very vile underhanded maneuvering by union people that I didn’t want to cross (I love shoes, just not cement ones)… and because my own peers, longtime friends, etc were acting acrimoniously… in such a way that made actors look bad, disproportionately.
Was I for, or against, the merger? I thought it wasn’t ready yet.
That it seems a reckless gamble, to call for it and pass it right NOW; without the due diligence, and without following the advice of the people who are experts on this, and who said no, that it’ll be napalm. Like any business relationship, I expected a prospectus, felt it necessary. First. I seriously questioned/wondered/worried about the lack of planning, and lack of heeding of warnings. Further worry and doubt came when I watched the workings of the obvious PR campaign ($100,000 acc to R Reardon, and I think that’s a lowball figure). Repetitive PR that worked so hard at steering everyone away from the specifics, while selling the generality, and only a generality.
There was bad behavior, between actors, that I wanted to avoid personally; and bad behavior by actors that I wanted to NOT promote to the rest of the world; which only made us look bad, and which, I felt, would only further an already existant bias and within-the-industry actor stereotypes.
There’s more, too; much more. I may, or may not, get to that stuff on the blog (Hollywood Actor Prep). It’s a real done-deal now, though; so I probably won’t.
From my Facebook personal page, which is solely for personal friends…
SAG-AFTRA is now going to become one guild, as the referendum passed.
Let’s hope that it, in actuality, CAN become a good thing. That the unexamined merger mirage can somehow, with major requisite miracles, become a positive reality; and that all the lack of planning somehow doesn’t result in the profession of acting, already a near impossible career to enter + maintain; absolutely financially impossible, in America.
Well, congrats to all you middle-class actors (near-entirely white males, because you are the only actors for whom there is enough acting work to comprise an actor “middle class”) who publicly spearheaded this merger, bulldozing a movement forward without any specific planning or practical steps in place, without a real financial investigation and prospectus.
Break a leg! (But first fix AFTRA’s Health Plan, because as I remember it, it really sucked.)
Best,
Dana
Inspire others: share please.
