About 300 members gather at Wilshire Blvd. HQ
SAG took its battle with the studios to the sidewalk outside its headquarters for a Monday morning rally with members, vowing to fight the good fight for a fair deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and urging them to vote against the newly brokered AFTRA contract with the majors.
"It is essential that we vote down that AFTRA deal now," SAG president Alan Rosenberg told the crowd, estimated at about 300, that gathered outside the union's Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. "A no vote ... says, 'Get back to the table with the Screen Actors Guild.' "
Rosenberg gave a rundown of some of the compromises AFTRA has allegedly made that SAG is not willing to make, including giving in to product integration and not pushing for an increase in mileage reimbursement, which hasn't been bumped up for 30 years. His comments were often met with chants of "vote no" from the crowd.
A source close to AFTRA who attended the rally said SAG mischaracterized the deal.
"It is unfortunate that SAG's primary negotiating tactic seems to be to vote down its sister union's contract on a prayer of achieving a better deal with the AMPTP," the observer said. "SAG members should encourage guild leadership to spend more time at the table and less time, effort and member resources undermining AFTRA."
Rosenberg also compared actors to lab rats, saying the studios are not partnering with actors in new media but rather using them to experiment.
He conceded to the crowd that SAG's negotiating committee has made "incredibly painful compromises on key issues" but is standing firm on issues that "if we don't address them now will affect middle class actors."
AFTRA on Friday voted to send its new primetime/TV contract to its 70,000 members for ratification. Of those members, 44,000 are also members of SAG.
The rally also featured former SAG president Ed Asner, the union's chief negotiator Doug Allen, WGA president Patric Verrone and the WGA's national executive director David Young.
But not everyone joined the rally. Members of SAG's negotiating committee from the East Coast boycotted the rally, which was billed as a solidarity rally but at times turned into an anti-AFTRA contract rally.
"We cannot support anything which jeopardizes our negotiations at this very sensitive time, and that is just what this ill-advised action does," negotiating co-chairman Mike Pniewski said. "There's simply too much at stake to engage in such a divisive initiative."
While SAG has always dealt with an East Coast-West Coast rivalry among its leadership, the divisiveness has been bubbling during the current negotiations and reached a boiling point Friday when the national committee narrowly voted to spend at least $75,000 to thwart AFTRA's deal with the AMPTP.
SAG had no immediate comment on the boycott.
A town hall meeting for SAG members is planned for Wednesday.
AFTRA also is planning informational meetings for its members, beginning Thursday in Los Angeles.
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