What follows is an open email from actor Dave Clennon to UFS candidate Ken Howard and some of his other actor friends who are either on the UFS slate or support it.
Although, it is a very heartfelt letter, I was hesitant to post it because of a National Political element in it. Not that I agree, or disagree, with Mr. Clennon’s opinion’s on the subject, I find that interjecting National Politics on the already divisive field of SAG politics can be counter productive, leading to divisiveness between those Republicans and Democrats, who may be of the same mind when it comes to the goals of the Screen Actors Guild.
I decided to post it anyway, because it expresses the plight of the middle class actor, facing a future when his only residuals may be between $23 and $85 bucks for crossover from network to internet.
Where he may see his jobs go to non-union or fi-core actors on new product where signatories determine who is a professional actor without bothering to contact the guild.
Where there will be no residuals for new product on the Internet. Where signing a consent form for clip use will be a condition for getting the job. Where actors will no longer have force Majeure protection, and the list goes on and on.
Where he and most actors won’t qualify for Health insurance.
Anyway here is Mr. Clennon’s letter in its entirety
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From Dave Clennon:
Ken Howard’s response to Keith Carradine is evasive and mendacious. Mr. Howard and I were in drama school together several years ago. I thought of him as a friend.
I used to think you could have “political differences” with friends and still remain friends. But what if your friend's "“political” actions injure you and injure your family? Is he or she still your
friend?
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From: David Clennon
Date: Fri Sep 04, 2009 02:44:32 PM US/Pacific
Subject: AN OPEN LETTER TO SOME FRIENDS HOW THE POLITICAL BECOMES PERSONAL.
When Your FRIENDS Threaten Your Livelihood.
An open letter to “Unite-for-Strength” candidates, who are my friends — To Ken Howard. Richard Speight. Keith Szarabajka. Matt Letscher.
To William Charlton. Morgan Fairchild. Pamela Reed. And Tom Verica –
And to my friends among their “Unite for Strength” supporters: Tony
Shalhoub. Meshach Taylor. To Ed Begley. Peter Coyote. Eric Stoltz. Mike Farrell. Richard Masur. Kevin Kilner & Ron Perlman –
I’ve had the pleasure and the honor of working with every one of you,and I’m comfortable calling you friends, or, at least, “friendly co-workers.”
Ken, (I’m going to address you personally, because I’ve known you the longest, but my questions are directed to the rest of you, as well)
—
Ken, and my other friends — I don’t understand your behavior: If you have ANY comprehension of what you’re doing to the rest of us in S.A.G., Does your conscience trouble you?
If you don’t know how you’re hurting us, will you please do some research, assess the current balance of forces between us and the AMPTP, and then ask yourselves WHY you want to weaken our S.A.G. negotiating team as it strives to secure us, the members, a livable wage, at this turning point in our lives?
It’s not “just” Guild politics. Your political actions have real PERSONAL consequences, for real people. Let me give you an example, Ken, of the kind of person you’re hurting:
You’re hurting me. And my family. I’ve had ups and downs. I’ve been luckier than most, and luckier than I ever deserved to be. But I have never squandered my earnings. Let me give you a snapshot of my family’s current situation:
We have twins in elementary school (the first children either of us has had). We bought our first house in 2001. It’s a modest, two-bedroom place, but we bought on the south side of Santa Monica so our kids could go to public school here. Of course, we paid a huge premium to gain that opportunity. Our mortgage is $3,400 per month.
As I said, I’ve been lucky: We bought our house in a year when I could afford the down payment.
The exterior is long-overdue for painting. Can’t afford it, Ken. We drive a 2002 Prius and a 1993 Honda. My wife’s computer is a first-generation iMac, c. 1999, inherited when her mother died. I have a 2002 eMac, with the original operating system. Our one television is a 1989 Trinitron given to us by my wife’s nephews, when they moved this year. Our DVD player is the Cinea that was sent free to members of the Academy five years ago, or longer. We don’t have iPhones or anything comparable.
In recent years, we would have lost our S.A.G. health insurance, Ken. RESIDUALS, far more than my few scale-plus-ten salaries, put us over the threshold. I’d say we’re right in the MIDDLE of the middle class.
And I’m NOT complaining about our standard of living. I’m protesting against what Unite-for-Strength is doing to DEGRADE our standard of living.
You are threatening me and my family. And you are threatening thousands of your fellow actors, Ken, who have been LESS FORTUNATE than you and I.
Your leader, Ned Vaughn, is a Republican, a member of the party of Dick Cheney. I know an individual’s outside party affiliation is not supposed to matter inside the Guild. (And the G.O.P. of Cheney was also the G.O.P. of Eisenhower, Leach and Chaffee.)
But, I’m sorry, that HAS to tell you something. Again, the political becomes PERSONAL:
The eight-year reign of Cheney/Bush has negatively impacted my family and all but a few Americans. Just one example, NED — American workers, those in unions and those without, are battered and de-moralized, thanks to your Secretary of Labor and your entire Administration.
I don’t believe that the driving force behind “Unite-for-Strength” is the wish for merger, as sincerely as most of you may wish for it. I believe the engine behind your campaign is driven, in large part, by HATRED of MembershipFirst. The fantasy of merger is a pretext; the goals are revenge and vindication. Look at the literature, look at the blogging comments. Read Mike Farrell’s letter to his email list. The rage and the hatred leap off the screen.
I’ve tried to figure out the motive behind their destructive behavior. What I come up with isn’t pretty. Could it be that the people who are steering your campaign DON’T CARE that you could be destroying the
rank-and-file’s hopes for winning a livable future? Is it possible that they see a S.A.G. failure at the bargaining table as a DESIRABLE outcome? One that will discredit their enemies, AT THE EXPENSE of the majority of Guild members?
For thirteen years I was a loyal follower of your S.A.G. faction, which has re-branded itself as “Unite for Strength.” In one earlier guise, we called ourselves “Restore Respect” and, in general, we thought of ourselves as “THE WORKING ACTORS.” During the writers’ strike, as I walked their picket lines, and argued the writers’ case
with friends and strangers, I came to realize that I no longer belonged in the company of “The Working Actors.”
Recently this faction made a concerted push to DISQUALIFY less successful actors from voting on ratification of Primetime/ Theatrical contracts. Almost every one of you, Ken, endorsed the plan. I won’t argue the merits here. But the TIMING of your divisive campaign, as we were recovering from the writers’ strike, as we were preparing to face the AMPTP, ourselves — your timing was unconscionable.
I voted twice for merger. I have never voted for a MembershipFirst candidate or for any of their positions on referendums. But OUR MEMBERSHIP ELECTED THEM to fight for us, to fight for a contract we all can LIVE with.
I don’t care, now, that our negotiators MAY have made mistakes, in the past. I don’t care, now, that MembershipFirst played rough in Guild politics. I don’t care if they’re rude and obnoxious and confrontational. I doesn’t matter to me now whether they’re gentlemen and ladies. I don’t care that they have made a distinction between the mass of our members and the Fortunate Few — a distinction your faction trumpets as “divisive.” I don’t care if they, and our negotiators, are the spawn of Beelzebub. They are OUR NEGOTIATORS, Ken. They are not action-figures that you and your friends can smash if they don’t work the way you think they should. They are the MEMBERSHIP’s negotiators.
And rank-and-file members need them to be strong.
I never thought I’d say something like this to another actor whom I regard as a friend: This isn’t “just” POLITICAL. This is PERSONAL. You are hurting a real PERSON, Ken. You are hurting MANY real persons,
including a whole younger generation of actors.
If you sincerely believe that merger is desirable and possible, then DROP OUT NOW, and run again on that issue AFTER we’ve had a fighting chance to win a fair contract. Do you have the decency NOT to disregard the rest of us as less-than-pawns in your drive to destroy your adversaries?
In my first draft of this letter, I wrote, ” . . . You are hurting MANY real persons. And you should be ashamed of what you’re doing to us.”
But that doesn’t really capture what I feel. What I want to say is that I’m disappointed. And I have to say that I take no pride in once having thought of you all as friends.
Sincerely,
Dave Clennon
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A.L. Miller SW Editor & Chief 
Look, I’m not sure that any of us know all the bad things that will be coming our way courtesy of the AMPTP, if SAG is forced to capitulate to producers, in what is obviously a coordinated effort, assisted by certain high-profile actor/Producers, to bring the Great Screen Actors Guild to its knees in order to turn it into little more than a company union. One, like all company unions, dependent on them for handouts such they gave their perspective company union AFTRA in order to leverage SAG into joining the AMPTP breadline.
I just saw Kim Hedgpeth being interviewed on the Jonathan Handel show on the Internet. And she reassured everyone that the Exhibit A Agreement had a Sunset Clause. And that the subject would be revisited in three years.
Ah, right! But if history has taught us one thing, it is that once the AMPTP has set a formula advantageous to itself, it may revisit it, but it sure as hell ain’t gonna change it—just as it refuses to budge even a penny on DVD--which has had the same formula with its disadvantageous revenue split for actors, for over a QUARTER OF A CENTURY!
The same for commercials on cable. After the same lousy entrenched commercial cable rates for years, SAG members finally had to go on strike to get an appreciable bump in commercial cable residuals.
Once, our employers can do sanctioned non-union work on the Internet and pay NO residuals, sunset or no sunset clause, the only way SAG will get them to, seriously, revisit the subject will be if we revis1t them with picket signs.
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