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Actors debate their right to vote
Is 'qualified voting' marginalizing the unemployed?
By PETER BART, Editor

Filling out my Writers Guild strike ballot the other day, I had a disturbing realization: I'm officially entitled to vote for both a writers and actors strike even though I'm neither a writer nor an actor. Why do skuzzy outsiders like me have so much clout?

The answer, of course, is that guilds and unions like the WGA, SAG and AFTRA traditionally have gained muscle by building as broad a membership as possible. You can become a proud member of SAG if you've worked as an extra for three days or had a speaking part in a commercial or video (provided they're SAG shows). Almost everyone I know seems to belong to SAG, along with practically every member of my family.

I like actors, mind you. That's why I believe that working actors, not all of us riff-raff, should be allowed to control their own guild.

I'm aware that the easiest way to start an argument in this town is to advocate "qualified voting." Though more than 1,000 working actors like Ben Affleck, Glenn Close, Charlie Sheen and Kevin Bacon recently signed a petition proposing that only working actors should have the vote, SAG also has many activists, including its president, Alan Rosenberg, who insist this position is somehow undemocratic. "I'm totally against the idea," he said. "It disenfranchises people who are already marginalized."

"Marginalized," in his lexicon, apparently means unemployed. A waiter who once did a commercial but hasn't worked since is therefore "marginalized." SAG has some 120,000 members, most of whom are definitely marginalized. But Rosenberg and his allies who control the guild's 71-member board believe that all members, whether they're working actors or not, should be able to call a strike.

Rosenberg himself is a working actor and he and his executive director, Doug Allen, who used to represent football players, clearly are ready for their closeup now that Patric Verrone has finally relinquished centerstage. They believe they can improve on the deals carved out by the writers and directors guilds.

The danger of their hardlining is that it could split their guild. Top stars like Tom Hanks and George Clooney have made it clear they're reading from a different script: The town has been shut down for a long time, and it's time to get to the bargaining table and make a deal, they declare. Studios are stalling important projects because they fear a possible SAG work stoppage.

Hence a number of influential SAG members believe that an actor should have to make at least $1,000 a year, or be fully vested in the SAG pension plan, to qualify for voting privileges on a strike. In other words, they're asking, "Why put the fate of the entertainment industry in the hands of people who have nothing to lose?"

This is an issue, I realize, that has reappeared in many forms and in many unions over the decades. A generation ago the newspaper industry in New York was essentially decimated due, in part, to the obstinacy of a guild supposedly representing reporters, when the reporters, in fact, constituted just a small minority of its membership.

Now that it's the actors' turn at the bargaining table, will the wannabe thesps be gracious enough to let their colleagues -- their working colleagues who make a living from acting -- determine the fate of their guild?

It's a delicious irony, in a sense: Those folks who have always yearned for the spotlight finally have it. How will they behave in the glow?

SAG president nixes qualified voting
Rosenberg claims initiative would 'weaken us'
By DAVE MCNARY

With high-pressure contract negotiations looming, SAG president Alan Rosenberg has thrown cold water on the idea of any kind of limit on guild member voting.

The "qualified voting" issue is expected to be on the agenda of SAG's April 12 national board meeting, but Rosenberg's already indicated he's certain the measure won't be approved.

More than 1,400 actors have signed a petition asking that SAG's board institute a requirement that would limit those able to vote on the contract to those who -- over the past six years -- have performed an average of five days principal work or 15 days background work per year; or had average residual earnings per year equivalent to five principal days at scale; or is fully vested in the SAG Producers Pension Plan.

Such a move would eliminate a large percentage of the 120,000 SAG members now eligible to vote on the contract and on a strike authorization, if SAG issues such a request. Backers of the petition -- including Amy Brenneman, Sally Field and Charlie Sheen -- note that less than 20% of SAG members earn at least $7,500 annually.

But Rosenberg criticized backers of the proposal for the timing of the initiative with formal negotiations starting April 15. "To make this such a public issue at this time is meant to do nothing but weaken us," he told the Wall Street Journal.

Ned Vaughn, who has led the drive, disputed that assessment.

"To suggest that so many old friends and colleagues of his -- including movie stars, representatives of every major show on TV, and sitting SAG national board members -- would raise this issue out of anything other than a sincere desire to strengthen our guild is an affront," he said. "And the idea that those with the most at stake in upcoming contract negotiations would seek to weaken the guild right now is preposterous. Alan is wrong not only about our motives, but also about the effect that adopting our proposal would have - which would be to strengthen the guild."

Vaughn noted that AFTRA's recent decision to ditch joint negotiations weakens SAG's position and contended that qualified voting is an opportunity to increase SAG's leverage at the bargaining table.

The issue of "qualified voting" last emerged six years ago after SAG's members voted down a revamp of its master franchise agreement for agents, leading to complaints by backers that nonworking actors may have been the key component in the no vote. A proposal was then crafted as a way of restarting negotiations with agents, but the measure went nowwhere after several members characterized such a move as undemocratic and elitist.

Actors Guild Faces Drama In Its Ranks
By PETER SANDERS

As the Screen Actors Guild gets set to begin contract negotiations with the major Hollywood studios -- and tries to avert a crippling strike like the recent walkout by writers -- the union first must address some strife within its own ranks.

Hollywood's largest creative guild said late Tuesday it plans to begin labor negotiations with the major movie studios and television networks April 15, more than two months before its contract expires June 30.

Some actors want to prevent those who work less frequently from voting on the contract. Also, a group of high-profile actors, including Tom Hanks and George Clooney, lent their names to ads in Hollywood trade papers after the writers' strike ended in February, imploring the SAG's leadership to begin negotiating as soon as possible. On top of that, the guild has also recently squabbled with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, another union of actors that is launching contract talks at about the same time.

Such a move would eliminate a large percentage of the 120,000 SAG members now eligible to vote on the contract and on a strike authorization, if SAG issues such a request. Backers of the petition -- including Amy Brenneman, Sally Field and Charlie Sheen -- note that less than 20% of SAG members earn at least $7,500 annually.

Guild President Alan Rosenberg says the internal disputes come "out of fear and strike weariness" after a walkout by the Writers Guild of America -- waged largely over how screenwriters are to be paid for use of their work on the Internet -- shuttered production for about 100 days in late 2007 and early 2008. Worried that a divided union will lack bargaining power, he is seeking to damp the issues before talks begin.

Even SAG's leadership acknowledges that those divisions might now undercut the actors' leverage as they enter talks. The actors' guild is expected to seek a sweeter deal than the three-year pacts reached by writers and directors, with increases for compensation from work used on the Internet and via other new media, as well as an increased share of DVD revenue, a proposal the WGA yielded on fairly quickly.

The intramural fights highlight a difficult issue that all of the Hollywood creative unions face: Their ranks include a wide range of economic interests that aren't always aligned when it comes time to negotiate a new contract. The Screen Actors Guild, for example, includes a relatively small number of actors who work regularly and cash big checks. But many of the guild's members are out of work for long periods, and may not have landed a TV or movie gig for years.

The scrape between the haves and have nots is at the heart of the loudest issue SAG has faced in recent months: an effort by some members to change the rules governing who gets to vote on new contracts. Currently, all of the roughly 120,000 members of the guild are eligible to vote on proposed labor contracts. But a core group of actors who work regularly feel they should have the say in what contract terms to accept or reject. They are proposing a so-called qualified voting structure that would take into account the amount of work a member completes during a contract period.

"This is categorically a movement of working actors to try to strengthen their union by putting control of contract decisions in the hands of those directly impacted by those voting outcomes," says Ned Vaughn, a longtime television and film actor who recently appeared in the TV drama "Cane" and is one of the two actors spearheading the "qualified voting" effort.

So far, Mr. Vaughn and fellow member Amy Brenneman ("Judging Amy") have gathered more than 1,400 signatures in favor of the change, including some of the biggest names in show business. But while A-listers like Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon have signed on with hundreds of other "working actors," SAG's leadership isn't in favor of a change. The move to change the voting and membership structure of the union is one that has cropped up a number of times over the years and hasn't yet succeeded.

Mr. Rosenberg met with Mr. Vaughn and Ms. Brenneman on Feb. 20 and agreed to take the issue to SAG's 71-member national board when it meets in Los Angeles on April 12. But he is certain the issue will go nowhere with the board.

"Our board and our members will never vote for this and I wish we weren't discussing it in any major way," says Mr. Rosenberg. "To make this such a public issue at this time is meant to do nothing but weaken us." Mr. Rosenberg added that stripping contract voting rights from thousands of SAG members would "weaken us in negotiations" with the studios "in a major way."

Mr. Rosenberg is backed by some working members who feel that the proposed changes are undemocratic. One of them is Ron Livingston, who played the lead in the movie "Office Space" and was a character on the TV show "Sex in the City." "It's not a collective agreement unless you agree to it collectively," says Mr. Livingston. "The strength of the union is not just the actor working the job, it's the other nine actors next to him who say, 'We'd love that job, too, but we're not going to take it unless you pay him what he's worth.'"

While the Screen Actors Guild members squabble among themselves, they are also in a dispute with another union of actors that is also entering contract negotiations with the studios. Over the weekend, SAG split with the smaller Aftra, which has for 30 years jointly negotiated labor contracts with SAG. While SAG represents most actors working in movies, television and commercials, Aftra has members in soap operas, news programming and other areas. The two unions had been at odds for the past few months and had only recently decided to again present joint contract proposals to the studios.

Their parting of ways put pressure on SAG to begin negotiations with the studios, lest the smaller union get there first. It is believed that SAG and Aftra will present similar contract proposals. Since Aftra has fewer television shows affected by the new contract, the worry was that they would make a deal with the studios that could possibly be disadvantageous to SAG, which has a much larger stable of affected members.

Aftra said Wednesday it would begin its own negotiations with the studios on April 28 and noted that 44,000 SAG members also hold membership in its union.

For SAG, the challenge lies in negotiating a deal in the wake of negotiations between the WGA and the Directors Guild of America. The directors negotiated the first new three-year contract in the midst of the writers' strike in January. That deal served as a template for the eventual contract reached by the writers and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers the next month.

Spat Between Actors' Unions Snarls Negotiations With Studios
By MICHAEL CIEPLY

LOS ANGELES -- A sudden split between two actors unions over the weekend added an unhappy twist to Hollywood's troubled contract cycle: It appeared to weaken the labor organizations without making life easier for the studios they bargain with

On Saturday, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists suspended its bargaining alliance with the Screen Actors Guild, just before a board meeting where they hoped to approve a joint negotiating strategy.

The actors' current contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expires on June 30, and talks about a new contract were to have begun within two weeks.

Now AFTRA, the smaller of the two unions, says it plans to open talks with the producers on its own as quickly as possible. In a brief statement, the studios' alliance said it welcomed the prospect.

Hollywood, however, stands little to gain from a showdown. Having barely recovered from a three-month writers strike, television producers have been rushing to get their series back on track. Movie studios, meanwhile, are hurrying to finish productions like Universal Pictures' "Land of the Lost" -- a Will Ferrell comedy that was being shot last week at the La Brea Tar Pits, a half block from the actors guild headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard -- before facing the possibility of another walk-out.

Informal discussions between the federation and the studios could begin immediately, but formal talks might be delayed by separate negotiations scheduled in early April between the companies and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, which represents production workers.

In an interview on Sunday, Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild, said his union might now accelerate its timetable so that it would not have to negotiate behind the federation, which is known as AFTRA. "We have to move much more quickly than we wanted to," Mr. Rosenberg said.

The exchanges concealed some dangerous complications, beyond the potential scheduling conflicts. Neither actors union is quite as strong without the other. Both face the possibility that disparate contracts will lead to a protracted struggle for representation of actors on television shows, including prime time series, that could be represented by either.

And the movie and television companies now face the possibility that the actors guild, which has been pressing more assertive positions than the federation, will hold out for bigger gains on its own than would have been possible in joint talks.

The two unions seems to want the same thing: Mr. Rosenberg said his union on Saturday night approved the same demands that had been hammered out together jointly with the federation. He declined to discuss specifics, but confirmed that the proposals would include demands related to compensation for DVDs. Actors have said they want an increase in DVD compensation, which companies have strongly resisted in the past.

In an interview on Sunday, Roberta Reardon, the federation's president, said that her group's board had approved the same proposals on Saturday, which means that both unions will start negotiations with matching demands.

The weekend blow-up occurred after leaders of the federation, which represents about 70,000 actors and others, learned that guild leaders, who represent about 120,000 actors, had met with cast members of the CBS soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful."

(The two unions have about 40,000 members in common. The federation does not cover movies, but the unions both cover sometimes overlapping areas of television work.)

Earlier in the day, The Los Angeles Times reported that the federation officials had accused the guild of encouraging actors who were trying to end the federation's representation of the show's cast. Guild leaders disputed the claim. On Saturday evening, however, federation leaders scrapped the planned talks, which have been conducted jointly for nearly 30 years, citing the soap opera incident as the latest in a series of attempts by the guild to undercut them.

"This was simply the culmination of what really has been a year-long campaign by SAG to discredit AFTRA," Ms. Reardon said on Sunday.

Mr. Rosenberg -- who called the soap opera issue a "sham" designed to let the federation exit joint talks. -- said his guild had pledged not to take up representation of the "Bold and the Beautiful" actors, even if the federation were decertified. Relations between the unions, often rocky, had become especially difficult after the actors guild earlier floated a plan to tilt its customary 50-50 position on a joint bargaining committee in its own favor, because the guild is larger and its members have more earnings.

As of Sunday morning, the organizations did not appear to be poised for reconciliation. "I'm so furious about the whole thing, I can hardly talk about it," Mr. Rosenberg said.