The question for SAG is now… what will you do without a strike or a contract?
Today, SAG announced that it would delay the sending of ballots for a strike vote by two weeks. As Mike Farrell comments in a stunningly disingenuous, but occasionally dead accurate missive, “It appears that we’re now going to be paying for another ‘education campaign,’ this time one that will explain how important it is that this strike vote succeed.”
I agree with that particular sentiment completely. I think much of the rest of his “truthdig” release to be self-serving bull. He is as much a part of this problem as anyone when he refuses to acknowledge even the possibility that there is another side to the AFTRA merger position that is anything but insane and he spins many of his “facts” to fit that position, leaving out any offer of the reason why actions he doesn’t like were taken… well, except for crazy pills.
But on an attempt to “educate” SAG members to vote for a strike authorization, like the attempt to “educate” AFTRA members not to vote for the contract they signed – a virtual death warrant for SAG as we have known it for decades – is a disaster. And if SAG leadership spends more than the cost of one meeting doing it, they should be fired for that. Just idiotic. Either call the vote or wait, but selling the position is not what anyone needs. And it is a doomed idea.
It is easy to say that a “no” vote on strike authorization will decimate the union’s ability to negotiate. But we are past that. And it is easy to say that this whole mess could have been better negotiated. But that’s not really true either. The “right deal” died with the other unions, with AFTRA as the killing blow. I am amazed that AFTRA continues to behave in a completely predatory way and still, SAG members are out defending AFTRA as some sort of victim of the current SAG leadership. And when AFTRA eats SAG whole, which now seems inevitable, those same people who fought to give AFTRA more power earlier will blame Rosenberg for that also.
The “No Strike” forces have won… because in the end, the sentiment of no strike is the right sentiment, even if some have motives that can surely be disputed in high decibel levels. And there will never be a strike authorization vote or a strike.
So… what does SAG do now?
The question is, can Doug Allen and Alan Rosenberg be forced into signing the deal that is on the table? That is what I believe membership now wants, in the majority. (Yes, a guess on some level. But how many really dispute this… and is the vote delay anything less than confirmation from within?) Well, Rosenberg says he will do it if there is not support for a strike. So…
AMPTP has the offer of synchronized contract end dates for WGA and SAG in 2011 on the table… but history has shown us that once precedent is set, it doesn’t change much. So the idea that 2011 will bail SAG out is not too realistic. And by the end of 3 more years, it wouldn’t be shocking anymore for SAG to handle movies only and AFTRA to oversee all of television. This is where we have been heading since AFTRA started being more generous to producers of “taped” television that SAG was. This is where AMPTP is heading, it seems to me. It all makes perfect sense… to everyone but actors who want to make a living and will never be marquee stars. A merger will blur this more, but at some point, the interest of film actors will be discarded by a merger actor’s union and a movement to restructure will emerge.
Anyway…
I think it’s all over. A deal gets signed shortly after The Oscars. Doug Allen is marginalized or gets a settlement allowing him to take all the money and go get a job with some other union that’s going out. Rosenberg resigns. And on to the AFTRA merger.
And in all the in-fighting one very simple detail is forgotten. No one at SAG wins. AMPTP wins. 5 for 5.
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Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/12/buhbye_strike_b.html