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Restore Respect spokesman Mike Farrell’s letter to SAG members courtesy of RR candidate James Cromwell! Vision or Vitriol? You decide!

.: .
Date: Tuesday 8/19/2003

[PAID POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

This e-mail message is not an official communication of the Screen Actors Guild and has not been transmitted at Guild expense. The Guild is required by federal law to provide candidates with the opportunity to send you e-mail messages. The following has been prepared by the candidate and is not endorsed or reviewed by the Guild in any manner. The candidate has not been provided with your e-mail address. The messages are being transmitted by an independent electronic communications firm.

To my fellow members:

Please take a few moments to read what follows. It is a cautionary tale: an account by Mike Farrell of his experiences in the boardroom of the Screen Actors Guild. It is the observation of an eminently sensible and dispassionate man who neither gilds the truth nor shrinks from it.

Once again we are in the throes of a national election. Again there are two sides, divided on almost every substantive issue from the ATA to Consolidation and Affiliation. Obviously, it is possible to have more than one vision of the future. Disagreement and debate are the life-blood of the democratic process. But when one side of that debate becomes implacably hostile, irascible and contemptuously doctrinaire, we must look past the rhetoric and discern the motive behind the intransigence. In my opinion, Mike has hit the nail on the head. Read it and draw your own conclusions.

James Cromwell

On SAG - One man’s perspective - “If she succeeds, we’ll never get back into power.”

--------

By Mike Farrell

This odyssey in SAG politics has involved a huge learning curve for me - a baptism of fire, in a way. And the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn, because it goes against everything I want to believe about people, is the degree to which frustration, jealousy and the need to have a sense of power in one’s life drive the political fortunes of our union. If one thing has become very clear very quickly, it is that what was at the root of the opposition to the recent Consolidation and Affiliation Plan, all fear-mongering and protestations aside, is the resentment and sense of stolen entitlement that has fought us every step of the way for the last couple of years. In a way it is simple politics. If examined a bit more closely one finds it’s not so simple as it is simply mean.

The nucleus of the opposition to C&A was the group that lost power when Melissa Gilbert was elected president, and they have simply never gotten over it. Nor will they let it go. They oppose everything Melissa does - and anything attempted by those associated with her. They do it to undermine her in the eyes of the members so they can get her out of the way and get themselves back into power. They do it ruthlessly and without apparent concern for the ultimate cost of their actions to the union or its membership.

I came into SAG politics a kind of innocent, as I see it now, having involved myself only slightly in attempts to clean up some ugly little union things around the country - a reform movement in the Steelworkers Union, for example - and some very proud years working in support of and eventually with Cesar Chavez. Though a number of friends had encouraged me to get involved in SAG over time, I thought, frankly, that it was pretty well taken care of by involved members and I could do more good in the world of political action and social justice.

I actively supported Bill Schallert, Ed Asner, Dennis Weaver, Patty Duke and Barry Gordon. Richard Masur is an old friend and I voted for him and supported him when he was in office, but despite being asked I didn’t serve on a committee or run for the board. So it was a curious thing, then, during Richard’s tenure, to be approached out of the blue by an actor I had known casually for a number of years and be asked to run for president of the Guild at the head of the ticket of his group, the Performer’s Alliance (PA). I asked what the issues were on which they differed with Richard and was given a rather casual but very critical assessment of his failings and an assurance that they were representing the middle class actor who, this acquaintance insisted, was getting short shrift from Masur.

Curious, I told the man I’d get back to him and then put in a call to Richard to ask what the trouble was from his perspective. Surprised to hear that I had been approached, he described the PA as a group of politically ambitious commercial actors in Hollywood who seemed to feel that their needs had been unrecognized and unmet, so had begun to run for positions on the board of directors and appeared to be intent on taking power in the Guild. When I told Richard who had called me he seemed shocked and surprised that this person was now part of the PA.

Richard explained that there were many issues that had to be dealt with by the Guild and that while he understood the concerns of the PA, they, like others, were going to have to be patient in realizing their goals. I thanked him and called back the man who had made the offer and told him that Richard seemed to be aware of the problems he was concerned about and that it might make more sense to work with him than to launch a campaign against him. In any case, I said, he seemed to be trying to do a good job in a tough situation, and that while I was flattered by the request I really wasn’t interested in running against Richard.

A couple of years later, in what proved to be Richard’s last campaign, I was astonished at the level of vituperation heaped on him - allegations that he was being paid under the table by producers, claims that he was selling out the union, very ugly personal stuff - and I defended him when I could, but I frankly thought he’d be re-elected in a walk. So I was further astonished when that didn’t happen and very disturbed when I learned of the pain Richard had suffered at the level of ugliness, vitriol, personal insults and nastiness he had experienced throughout his last term in office and, in particular, during the final campaign. And those dishing it out, I learned, were some of that same Performer’s Alliance, who had by then moved in and taken positions of power on the Hollywood board and had subsequently recruited Bill Daniels, a character actor, to run at the head of their ticket in the recent campaign. Driven by this sense of frustrated entitlement and characterized by the excesses noted above, their campaign was successful to the point that they not only elected Daniels, but took over the majority of seats on the Hollywood Board.

Though dismayed about Richard, I only watched and listened a bit. Like most actors I was busy pursuing my career, so didn’t really have much of a sense of what was going on at the Guild during the early Daniels Administration. I was working during the commercials strike, so beyond being generally supportive I had no special awareness of the internal dynamics. When the strike dragged on and hurt a lot of people, I, like others, started to ask questions. Following up a lead, I talked to a man who had been invited by SAG to observe the negotiations leading up to the strike and heard disturbing tales of disorganization and unnecessarily confrontational behavior in the early days at the table. Other stories of bullying and intimidation of some of our own negotiators by the union leadership, an insistence on absolute, unquestioning fealty and things of that stripe sounded a bit crazy to me. During a strike things can get pretty intense, I knew, but this didn’t sound healthy. Not having been there to see for myself, however, I simply logged it and moved on.

(In talking to former members of the PA who left because of the hard-line tactics, I’ve subsequently learned that the worst of the behavior leading to the strike was an echo of the power grab in the union that split their own ranks. Described as a “bitter, angry group looking to take over the Guild,” its primary leaders are said to have first strategized on how to “attack the leadership,” how to “use Robert’s Rules to disrupt proceedings,” how to “gain control of committees,” and didn’t mind using “lies, insinuation and manipulation” to achieve their goal. One separated himself because he wouldn’t “march in lock-step” as demanded.)

Then, about three years ago, after being asked to get involved in what was described as a deteriorating situation and again demurring, I was implored to simply step into the SAG boardroom as a replacement for a member who couldn’t make a couple of meetings. That was fair, I thought. It was worth a little of my time to see for myself if what was going on was as bad as had been described.

Well, it was worse. In the space of the board meetings I attended as a replacement, I was appalled and embarrassed at the behavior I witnessed; the rude treatment of board members who spoke up in opposition to the controlling group (the PA), the boorishness, the intimidation, what seemed to me to be generalized antagonism, stupidity and utter self-destructiveness in a couple of the decisions made were truly mind-boggling. I heard actors calling other actors “traitor” for opposing a position favored by the powerful majority; I heard jeering and cat-calling, I saw members ridiculed for having the audacity to state an unpopular, thus “unacceptable,” view and heard members described in the most vile personal terms.

When one young woman, obviously not part of the favored majority, spoke out courageously on a particular subject, an older character actor loudly made a cutting comment at her expense, causing a cascade of laughter to erupt from his colleagues. I looked questioningly at a young actor sitting beside me and he shrugged, saying “I don’t know, they just hate her. She seems smart to me.”

Afterward, I remember going home and telling my wife that I literally couldn’t believe what I had experienced. One of the things that had been very apparent was the Hollywood majority’s overt and ongoing hostility toward the minority in the room that opposed them, toward apparently all members in the New York boardroom and their seemingly utter disregard for the concerns of those in the Branches. All that seemed to matter to this PA majority in Hollywood, from where I sat, was their power and their view of what Hollywood was, or was supposed to be.

Shortly thereafter, Valerie Harper was picked to succeed Bill Daniels, with the support of this majority (who now shed the term Performer’s Alliance and became Actors Moving Forward). The expectation, clearly, was that they would sweep to victory behind Valerie and continue to run the Guild in the manner they had so far enjoyed. Then Melissa Gilbert stepped up to oppose them and asked me to run as her First Vice Presidential candidate.

Valerie and I had been friendly for years, so I wasn’t frankly excited about opposing her, but having seen the ruthless behavior of those supporting her and appreciating Melissa’s courage in stepping up to the challenge of bringing some sanity to the boardroom, the antics of which continued to cause a slide in the esteem of the union in the eyes of the industry and the public at large, I took a deep breath and agreed.

It was a very tough, very nasty campaign. We were at first treated with amused disdain and later with utter contempt. Our theme was ‘Restore Respect,’ with the hope that members shared our desire to bring the Guild back to a place of honor. But to those whom we had challenged, we were the enemy; we were a dangerous group apparently in their eyes intending to subvert the good name of the Screen Actors Guild. More than once during this time I had cause to remember the grief Richard Masur had endured at the hands of many of these same people.

To my great surprise the members understood our points and after a bitter fight Melissa and I won, though our candidates for secretary and treasurer lost to better-known rivals who were part of Valerie’s team. And in spite of our winning the presidency and vice-presidency, the old guard of the Daniels Administration still controlled the Hollywood Boardroom, where deep resentment was felt at the audacity of our decision to oppose them - worse, to beat them. As the campaign heated up we heard reports that their intention, in the off-chance Melissa were to win, was to embarrass, harass and humiliate her, in the boardroom and outside, to the point that she’d be unable to stand it and resign.

Having now been elected 1st VP, my job was to chair the very Hollywood Board meetings where this group still controlled the majority. From the beginning it was painful. As was customary, we put forward a list of people we had selected to act as our alternates, two to take the board seats we had won in the election (we had to relinquish them because having won the offices as well we couldn’t occupy both). Because everything was determined by vote, the majority quickly made clear their disdain by refusing to seat our chosen alternates or, for that matter, any of our choices, and instead put in their own colleagues, some of whom had not even stood for election. Our committee appointments met the same fate. If Melissa named someone, he or she was quickly voted down and one of the opposition’s people put in. The majority can rule, as they demonstrated, ruthlessly. During this period they ruled with an iron fist and obviously enjoyed doing so, all the while, it appeared, waiting for Melissa to crack.

As chair, though a powerless participant in the face of the majority’s onslaught, it was an interesting thing to watch, if painful to be part of. Speeches would be made extolling the value of honoring tradition whenever it served their interests, but when it came to the tradition of allowing us to name our own replacements, somehow the custom lost its flavor. Circumlocution was the order of the day in these meetings and the majority’s use - abuse - of their knowledge of Robert’s Rules of Order only added salt to the wounds.

One later incident was particularly instructive. In forming a committee, Melissa asked one of their group to serve and was pleased to get a yes. Shortly thereafter, the member who had agreed was approached by an irate colleague who reportedly said, angrily, “What are you doing?” When told that the member thought serving on a committee was a way to help the Guild, the angry one retorted, “You can’t help her. If she succeeds, we’ll never get back into power.”

In the face of this almost unbelievable hostility, Melissa hung on remarkably. So the group’s next major assault was the now-infamous “re-run election.” They controlled the committee mandated to oversee the recent election (the one Melissa had won) and to make determinations regarding the validity of challenges to it. Because the victory was clear and the challenges were based on a couple of minor technical infractions, no one saw a reason to be very concerned. But, despite the fact that the “problems” found were technical, long-standing and easily fixable by the simple expedient of altering them for the next election, these dedicated souls determined that in this particular instance the problems were hugely significant and the difficulties they created could not be tolerated for another instant. The honor of the union uppermost in their minds, these stalwarts found themselves “required” to hold that the national officers’ election would have to be run all over again. One didn’t have to be a genius to see through this attempt to change the results and get Valerie elected on the second try, but it was so audacious as to be awe-inspiring.

Thus, at a huge cost to the Guild - well over $300,000.00, as I understand it - the entire election of national officers was run again, complete with a full campaign in which Valerie’s team fought tooth and nail for every vote, all the while loudly proclaiming their lack of interest in winning - piously insisting it was all in the name of fairness and the honor of the Guild. The result, after another ugly, name-calling, embarrassing and undignified fiasco, was that an outraged membership restated its intention to elect Melissa, this time with an even greater margin.

Though now a clear-cut, unassailable victor, Melissa was made to pay. The Hollywood board majority continued to humiliate her at every turn and looked for ways to undercut her credibility. They leaked stories - especially confidential information from board meetings - to their favorite columnist at the Daily Variety, a practice that resulted in a further soiling of the Guild’s reputation. Thus, despite our best efforts, the impression of rampant, childish, self-destructive infighting and crude behavior on the part of those responsible for running our union continued to flourish.

Now facing the deadline that meant the expiration of the SAG-ATA Franchise (the decades-old agreement by which SAG controls and monitors the relationship of actors with franchised agents to protect our membership) meant that a committee had to be formed to examine and evaluate this relationship, measure the agents’ demands and figure out the proper step for the Guild to take. (The agents, at this point, were unsure about entering into discussions at all. Having reached an agreement with the Masur Administration earlier only to have it quickly abrogated by Daniels and the PA, they weren’t sure SAG could be trusted to negotiate seriously.)

Given the power arrangement she was dealing with, Melissa carefully appointed the most reasonable pair of what were thought to be “their” people, Tom LaGrua and Tess Harper, whom she felt were dedicated union members, to co-chair the committee. Both were a bit reluctant to take the job since they understood the political danger involved, but finally agreed. She couldn’t have made a better choice. I served on the committee and saw Tess and Tom - and Michael Monks, another member of the opposition’s team on the committee - struggle to figure out a way to do what was in the best interests of the Guild membership while at the same time not be excoriated by their friends as a “sellout” to the agents - or to Melissa. The committee, which had some resolute no-voters on it who objected to any forward step taken, examined all the options, talked to the ATA, negotiated diligently and intelligently and finally worked out a compromise that gave away as little as possible while preserving the Franchise, a result we thought very important.

The critical issue involved the agents’ demand that we allow an increase in their ability to own or control part of a production entity or be bought into by one - a very tricky and slippery slope known as “financial interest.” Tom and Tess, in particular, and Michael to a somewhat lesser degree, were truly in a vise, because they saw that it was valuable to the Guild to work out a deal that preserved the Franchise, but were getting calls and pressure from their friends urging them to not ‘sell out.’ I gained a tremendous amount of respect for the three during this process.

And it was during this time, I believe, that the relationship of Bob Pisano, our National Executive Director and CEO, with the PA members began to curdle. Sought out and hired by them when the Daniels Administration was still in control, Pisano had been touted as the fair-haired boy, a credit to their regime, and given unprecedented power. (In addition to becoming National Executive Director, they gave him the position of Chief Executive Officer, a role traditionally held by the Guild’s president.) When he treated Melissa with the respect due her, they began to look a bit askance, I think, but the intelligence, business acumen and leadership skills he demonstrated during the ATA process were probably what sank him in their eyes because he and Tom and Tess led the committee to a solution that made sense.

We finally managed to craft an agreement that severely limited any “buy-in or buy-out” capability, included a sunset provision to protect the Guild if it didn’t work, and, most ingeniously, got the agents to accept that the entire package be hinged on their securing an agreement for such investment from the controlling authority at the State of California. Our sense here was that a reading of state law argued that such investment would likely not be acceptable to the state, but in the event they would allow it, we would at least have limited the damage done by locking the agents into terms we could live with, complete with built-in protections for our membership.

When we took the final package to the board, however, the controlling group, led by the most recalcitrant of our committee members, reacted with outrage. Tellingly, they reserved their most vituperative accusations for their (now apparently former) friends. I mean they fried them. Tess was humiliated, attacked verbally, threatened and at one angry meeting in which she and Tom were trying to explain the concept, so badly treated that she left the room in tears. Tom was labeled a Judas. Monks was clearly thought a traitor. And this treatment came from people who had been their personal friends, in some cases for years.

Despite the ugliness of the election fights, this was a new experience for me. A thoughtful and reasonable proposal to resolve a serious dilemma presenting huge problems for actors was met with not just rejection, but an outpouring of spleen that dissolved any hope of thoughtful discussion. Having once had relationships with some of those on the other side of this divide, I had become inured to the cold shoulder imposed since appearing on Melissa’s team, but those were casual relationships, so not a great loss. Tom and Tess and Michael were, I believe, deeply hurt by being branded as traitors and cut off by their friends because they had had the temerity to give in to reason.

Needless to say, the outraged posse mounted up again and launched a campaign to sink the ATA agreement. When we presented the proposal to the entire national board (which included the despised New York, Regional Branch and Hollywood minority) the majority of the board of directors supported it, increasing both the temperature of the opposition and their sense of threatened entitlement. They, they were sure, represented all that was holy in the lore of Hollywood and anything they deemed unacceptable threatened to sully the raiment of those who had come before and must be exposed as heresy and destroyed. Oddly, one might note, their side was composed, absent the newly designated ‘traitors,’ of the same people we had been up against since Melissa and I stepped into the political fray. And their minions on the street, the angry folks passing out literature and spreading fear were the same ones who had done so in the last two election campaigns. So the anti-ATA Franchise campaign was the mirror image of not only what we had seen before, but of what we were to see again in the Consolidation referendum; it was based on fear, distortion and a determination to obfuscate the plan’s value while playing on actors’ fears and insecurities. And by misrepresenting the plan and destroying it, I believe, they felt that they were undermining the membership’s confidence in “our side” and enhancing their own possibility of regaining power.

Without belaboring the ATA deal here, it simply wasn’t the giveaway it was painted to be. Their campaign succeeded in getting membership to oppose it in sufficient numbers to defeat the initiative, but they did so through manipulation of members’ fears, their distrust of agents, lack of comprehension of the facts and misunderstanding of the reality we face today without the agent’s franchise: a profusion of general service agreements allowing higher and broader commissions, lack of authority for SAG to help its members in agent/actor disputes, confusion in the ranks and no limits at all on financial interest.

After the ATA deal went down to defeat and the no-vote-leaders’ period of preening and self-congratulation abated, down the pike came the new ‘Governance plan,’ a structural reorganization that was the pride and joy of the Daniels Administration’s supporters. It had been worked on for a couple of years, during which time members in New York and the Regional Branches had fought for their lives against what they saw as a concerted attempt to amass power in Hollywood. After a huge and complicated series of negotiations and re-writes, Governance was finally passed by the board despite the deep concerns of members in the Regional Branches and NY, who, despite having made protective inroads, still felt it was being forced down their throats in a Hollywood-centric power-play.

The Governance Plan went out to the membership without a minority report. Despite deep resentment and reservations to it on the parts of many, the minority felt a decision of this magnitude should not be confused by an expression of opposition that would be complex and confusing to the membership and potentially divisive, so they gave it their quiet support in the hope of eventual comity. Absent such divisiveness, and without the volunteering of space for a minority report by those in favor, the Governance Plan was passed.

The hidden opportunity presented by the passage of the plan was that it required that every board seat in the country be vacated and elections held to fill the now-reduced number of seats available on the new National Board. Seeing that this presented the opportunity to possibly win some seats and dilute the power of the hostile group that had comprised the controlling majority in the Hollywood board, we reached out to recruit some thoughtful candidates, some working and well-known actors among them, and ran a slate for the board.

Again the bitter campaign. Again the angry minions on the street. Again the slurs and fear-mongering and accusations. And again we won. Despite the nasty campaign, the name-calling, distortion and misrepresentation of our positions, despite the fear-mongering and the fact that the same people were leading the opposition, we won. Our slate of candidates was very dedicated and the members got the message. We won and the majority of the board is now in the hands of those interested in working to restore the union to a place of respect. And the other side, having now lost three elections in a row, is angrier than ever.

But the tone in the boardroom is very different. We are now able to complete the business agenda at each meeting; members, for the most part, comport themselves with respect for other board members; though the press leaks and tricks and deceits continue, they are fewer in number and have less impact because the bellicose majority is now a minority and the risk of such behavior is self-exposure and humiliation.

But they bided their time, licked their wounds and awaited the next opportunity to find a way to take back the Guild.

And the next one came from a confluence of events. The consolidation of our employers, with cross-ownership of television stations and motion picture studios devoured by mega-corporations, combined with overlapping jurisdiction between AFTRA and SAG, created increasing problems for the unions and their members. These problems were exacerbated by advances in technology, most particularly digital production, and the result is an untenable situation. Since the lengthy commercial strike of 2000, both unions have been losing money every year and haven’t been able to provide the proper protections and services for their members while increasingly being forced to compete by producers who play the unions off against each other to their own advantage.

At the same time, out-of-country runaway production, an advertising industry still smarting from the 2000 strike and a sick national economy were creating problems for the respective unions’ pension and health plans even as lower wages and less work were impacting dues and contributions to those troubled plans.

Summit meetings between the unions resulted in the creation of joint committees to examine the problems and see if a solution was attainable. Months of meetings between the unions, assessment of the problems, consultations with labor experts and legal authorities and simple, head-banging negotiations brought us to an understanding that there was an answer to our problems that precluded the options of war between us and destruction of both. It was to develop a scheme that would consolidate the two unions in a manner that avoided the problems presented by earlier merger attempts while strengthening the hand of actors.

Principles of consolidation were drafted, analyzed, fought over, argued and, finally, agreed. Presented to the boards of directors of both unions, the principles were adopted (unanimously by SAG) and the committees were sent back to work out the structure of the new organization.

Months later, extraordinarily difficult negotiations, arguing, hair-tearing, tears, threats to shut down or walk away, educational processes, consultations with experts and sheer human determination resulted in a commitment to find a solution that would leave no member behind and the Consolidation and Affiliation Plan was born.

After being vetted by experts and adjusted, checked out with members and adjusted again and gone over with a fine-toothed comb by everyone and adjusted once again, it was presented to both unions’ boards of directors and overwhelmingly endorsed to be sent to their memberships for adoption.

And no sooner was it enthusiastically endorsed by a huge majority of the SAG Board of Directors than it was attacked and threatened with destruction by the same small group of contrarians (this time usurping the name Save SAG, amending it later to Save SAG Two) who have opposed every step we’ve taken since Melissa was elected.

I don’t want to claim that defeating Melissa and regaining power in the union was the only reason for anybody to oppose the Consolidation & Affiliation Plan; that would be silly. But it is clear to me that those factors were at the core of much of the organized opposition and were responsible for the strategies that drove it. One indicator is that many of the people who were so vehemently against consolidation and were picking at it to find fault had been against it since before it was completed. They’d been plotting to kill it before it was born, before they even knew what the Plan offered to the membership.

Example: before we were ready to submit the Plan to the boards, some of us on the committee were asked to reach out to board members or others to get their feedback and hear their concerns so that we could see if last-minute adjustments could solve any problems that we might not have considered.

I called a man who became a well-known leader of the opposition and asked his view. He said that he had long favored the idea of a merger and said of this Plan, “it’s so close I can smell it.” Heartened, I asked if there were specific concerns that we could possibly address that would solve whatever problems he might have. He spoke of his distrust of “convention” and said that having the three officers of AIMA elected at convention, rather than by popular vote, made it impossible for him to support the Plan. (One of the things we’d had the most trouble with in the drafting process was marrying the two different cultures of AFTRA and SAG. One example: SAG has always elected its officers by popular vote, while AFTRA, in the tradition of our political parties and most major unions, does so at convention. In one compromise, the joint committee had given the nod to AFTRA’s process and agreed that the national officers of AIMA could be elected at convention.)

Impressed with the depth of the man’s feeling on this subject as opposed to his apparent openness to the Plan in general, I asked if we could count on his support if we could change that one aspect. He said that if we got the officers elected by popular vote instead of at convention that would make the difference for him. But, he added, if he came over in support, “I would make a number of people very unhappy with me.”

We did go back and look at that issue and, hearing that it was a source of concern for many SAG members unused to the idea of convention, we found another compromise on the process by which the national officers of AIMA were to be selected. Now, the president and secretary-treasurer would be elected by direct popular vote of the membership and only the vice-president elected at convention. Despite our willingness to take reasonable steps to hear the concerns of those in opposition, however, the man with whom I had had this discussion chose to remain with his friends rather than make that “number of people” unhappy with him.

It is that “number of people,” those who had determined to kill the Plan before it was even fully formulated, whose motives I question. It is they who organized to spread the fear and distortion that so confused the membership and sullied the discussion. It is they who once again loosed their minions on the street to misstate the facts and spread lies and they did so, I submit, not because the plan was not good or did not work, but because it was not theirs. In this situation, it is clear, the benefit to the members is irrelevant. If we who helped draft the Plan and endorsed it for the good of the membership were successful in passing it, they feared, they’d “never get back into power.”

--

As said at the top, this entire process has been a learning experience for me. Unfortunately, some of the lessons have been bitter. In this critical time it seems to me that for the Screen Actors Guild to survive, it is urgently important for members to get involved and understand that service to the membership means knowing what’s happening. It means putting in time, doing more than paying dues and bitching about having to do so. Unless honest, independent women and men of integrity choose to give some of their time in service to the Guild, we risk allowing personal power agendas to derail the world’s greatest union of actors and further fuel the too-commonly held perception of those in our profession as petty, self-involved poseurs and dilettantes who don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
Thank you for taking the time to inform yourself. Aside from the personalities and the politics, I believe the issues are clear and to me the choice is obvious.
One Union, one voice. Vote your conscience. Restore Respect.
http://www.restorerespect.com/
http://www.unitedscreenactors.com/
http://www.saglives.com/
James Cromwell

E-mail replies may be sent to: reply@kosharifilms.com

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