*alert Backstage Reporter makes sport of the salaries of SAG’s NED Doug Allen and other SAG staff employees!

37 SAG Staffers Who Could Buy and Sell Me

Ah, dear Strike Watch readers. I come to you a bit more humbled than usual today. I’m just kicking myself because it turns out I totally missed one of the best days of the year! I must have been so wrapped up in planning for my luxurious, two-week staycation that I forgot about one of my—and other guild watchers--fave holidays. For this I am truly sorry, and thankful that Arlin Miller at SAG Watchdog remembered to celebrate the occassion—albeit 11 days late.

Of course, I’m taking about LM2 Day, the day SAG files its mandatory fiscal report with the Department of Labor. So much fun can be had parsing through pages and pages listing SAG’s assets and liabilities. It’s like learning the answers to everything you ever wanted to know about SAG’s finances but had too much of a life to ask.

Let’s skip the foreplay and go directly to the creamy center of the LM2: the salaries! Oh yes, imagine if the federal government decreed that the corporation for which you work had to disclose everyone’s salaries publicly. Wouldn’t you rush to compare what you, your boss, the CEO, Dave in marketing, and that new girl who answers the phones take home before taxes? And wouldn’t you want to jump out a window afterward?

For example, it turns out I finally make almost as much as the guild’s admin assistants! Sadly, I’m still a few thousand shy of matching the switchboard operator’s salary. Let’s hear it for my life choices!

But enough about my ever-useful degree in comparative literature (with a minor in French, thank you very much). The prize for Highest Paid SAG Employee goes to Doug Allen, who took home $456,416 in salary plus $56,486 in “disbursements for official business.” That’s a total of $520,902 of members’ money from May 1, 2007, to April 30, 2008. Over half a mil for one year of representing SAG actors—the vast majority of whom do not make the annual $13,790 minimum required to get basic guild health insurance.

Depending on whom you believe, $500,000 is either twice or five times the amount Allen and his compadres spent on the failed “Vote No” campaign against AFTRA’s prime-time contract.

Hmmm, no mention here of how much AFTRA spent on the TWO PR firms it used to help promote the agreement. Or on all those videos of Branch leaders endorsements, or the website, or emails or those flier's urging non actor broadcasters to vote on an actors referendum, even if they had NEVER worked the contract. One of those AFTRA PR firms, the hotshot and very expensive PR Firm Forty-Two West is the very same firm that represents Tom Hanks. You remember him? He’s the same super star who along with George Clooney, Robert DeNiro, and Meryl Streep went public with the deleveraging pronouncement that SAG should sign a deal because the membership did not have the stomach for another strike. Tom, along with Sally Field, went even further to deleverage our negotiators by backing AFTRA’s go-along-to-get-along Exhibit A agreement that gave away what everyone now seems to agree was a core SAG principal of not allowing signatories to do non-union work.

I’m not going to judge whether Doug Allen's services are worth that much, especially since he has yet to achieve what he was hired to do: bargain a new TV/Theatrical Contract. I say he’s worth every penny for coming up with the soon-to-be-ubiquitous phrase “comprehensive counterproposal.”

This last spin around the sun, SAG had more six-figure-earners walking its hallowed halls: 38 out of 457 employees made more than $100,000, compared with 31 out of 382 employees in the previous year. (At least someone’s hiring!)

Some notable members of the SAG sixers club include John McGuire, senior adviser, ($322,206); Pamm Fair, deputy national executive director for policy and strategic planning ($234,139); Pam Greenwalt, director of communication and occasional spokeswoman ($201,649); Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, general counsel, ($253,600); Peter Frank, CFO ($286,378); Tom LaGrua, contracts executive director ($189,711); and Todd Amorde, national director of organizing ($140,351).

Come play the home game I call “Do You Make as Much as a SAG Staff Member?” Just click here, and enter “SAG” in the “union abbreviation” field. Don’t be shy--share your findings in the comments section!
--Lauren Horwitch, who is rich in love

Now to be fair I’m sure that Lauren will, also, do a story on the outrageous salaries of our employers.

To start with anyone of the Top three employees of Viacom makes more than the combined staffs of SAG, AFTRA and the WGA. Combined the Three’s salaries of around A HUNDRED AND SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR --and they make more than the increase they are, actually, offering SAG for the length of their proposed contract.

Hell, if you, then, bring in the salaries of some of our other employers, And total the Seven's yearly salaries, they earn more than a

THIRD OF A BILLION DOLLARS a year!

This certainly explains why they are so adamant about refusing to give actors an increase, for example, on each Twelve Dollar DVD sold, from a penny to 1.15 cents--to split among the entire cast.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a hell of a lot more interesting story, and one that puts these negotiations in their proper prospective, than a "game "about the salaries of SAG staff members.

Now, I ain’t being critical of Ms. Horwitch,or her humorous approach on her SAG Salary stort, but you’d think she might have mentioned the fact that SAG had an increase in net assets of six million bucks, while AFTRA had about a two million decrease in net assets.

But with the compliant nature of the current AFTRA leadership, they have become the darlings of our employers. And it is not prudent for trade magazines or newspapers, dependent on revenue from these powerful companies, (or their reporters), to go against their darlings. And, conversely, it ain't a smart financial move for them to side with those, who stand up to the likes of the AMPTP, as the current SAG leadership has done.

And, to be fair, this is why it wouldn’t be a good career move for Ms. Horwitch to start publishing stories criticizing these conglomerate CEO’s, by revealing their salaries in a humorous way , or doing stories indicating any turmoil among their ranks, or trepidation on their part involving any possible strike.

Ms. Horwitch, ain’t no dummy! She ain’t about to do a story lampooning these powerful men’s salaries. But then there is always SAG, right? And who knows, it might even get her a few brownie points in case a big job opens up with one of them, where a smart reporter can make some serious money.

Meanwhile, we all enjoy a good game, and, to be honest checking out SAG Staff salaries ain’t much fun because there is no challenge , as they are all listed on the DOL website in one document.

Hmmm, what could be more challenging and fun, ah how about this game. “How much do Laura’s Employers Make?," not just the ones at Backstage--but, but, I mean the big ones at top! You know the executives at the Neilson Company which doesn’t just own Backstage, but, also, the Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, and Mediaweek.

Look, it, admittedly, ain’t an easy game, like getting the salaries of SAG employees. In fact, its downright hard. At least it was for the Old Dog; I spent about an hour trying to find the annual salary of the Neilson CEO/Chairman and came up with nothing.

Maybe you can be a winner of the “How much do Laura’s Big Bosses Make?” contest. The first one to email the Ol’ Dog the correct answer, naming the salaries of all those pictured below will receive a single piece of Watchdog paraphernalia; the next nine runnerups, with the correct answer will receive two pieces of Watchdog paraphernalia.

Oh, what the hell, the first ten with the correct answer with receive a Watchdog Coaster. Not much of a prize, but, at least, our winners will have the satisfaction of knowing that the cost of the coasters will come out of The Ol' Dog's very own pocket.

Laura Horwitch is not eligible to play. Oh, what the hell, again! Laura, you can play too, but, but it wouldn’t be advisable for you to win, as our winners will be announced on this site, and confidentially, I have been advised that some of our employers and there negotiators actually read this site.