Ken Howard
Patricia Richardson Withdraws as Ken Howard’s Replacement as SAG-AFTRA President!
Film Reporter for Variety March 25, 25
UPDATE, 4:36 p.m. — Patricia Richardson has declared that she does not want to succeed the late Ken Howard as president of SAG-AFTRA.
A Change.org petition drive was launched Thursday for Richardson to replace Howard. Richardson received 46% of the vote last August in a spirited electoral challenge to Howard, who died on Wednesday.
But Richardson told Variety that she was not comfortable with taking that course.
“While I really do appreciate the sentiments of the members asking me to run as the next President of SAG-AFTRA my feeling is that when the members elected Ken Howard they also endorsed his party and their philosophy,” she said. “Therefore it seems right to me that Gabrielle Carteris, who is our Executive Vice President and current acting President should assume the rest of Ken’s term as President at our upcoming Board meeting. Gabrielle shares Ken’s beliefs and worked closely with him. I look forward to participating in a smooth transition.”
Executive vice president Carteris became acting president of SAG-AFTRA as a result of Howard’s passing. The union’s national board, which holds four meetings a year, will determine at its April 9 meeting who will succeed Howard for the remaining 17 months of his term.
Carteris was re-elected to the post of executive vice president at the union’s biannual convention in September. The SAG-AFTRA Constitution, enacted in 2012 as part of the merger of SAG and AFTRA, provides that the exec VP will assist the president in the governance of the union and will succeed the president should the office be vacated — with the national board mandated to fill the slot.
Carteris has been part of the moderate-leaning Unite For Strength faction — which has dominated the leadership at the performers union since 2009.
The petition drive, launched by former presidential candidate Paul Edney, had attracted 132 signatures as of early Friday afternoon.
“It is the opinion of those who sign this petition president.”Richardson, who headed the Membership First ticket, received 13,976 votes to Howard’s 16,233 as the election was far closer than the 2013 race, when Howard handily defeated Esai Morales.
Unite For Strength has espoused a path of moderation and largely avoided mobilizing the union’s 160,000 members. Howard and his allies touted their accomplishments in the campaign, citing the merger, contract gains in the 2014 successor deal for the master contract with producers and faster delivery of residuals.
During the campaign, Membership First asserted that Howard had been too accommodating to employers at negotiations, had overspent on the New York offices, had cloaked operations in secrecy and had not achieved gains in the booming digital sector.
Unite For Strength still dominates the 80-member board, but Membership First, which has long advocated a more confrontational style, made its best showing in the election since 2007. It has a dozen seats on the board with prominent reps including Richardson, Martin Sheen, Joanna Cassidy, Esai Morales, former SAG president Ed Asner, Diane Ladd, Frances Fisher and secretary-treasurer Jane Austin.
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Too bad! Very sad in light of the the tragic event that preceded it.
Arl
The OL’ Watchdog
*Photo selected by Watchdog
(Analysis) Next for SAG-AFTRA? Gabrielle Carteris Steps in as mourns Ken Howard.
5:59 PM PDT 3/23/2016 by
The passing of Ken Howard comes at a critical time for the union he loved.
The death of actor and SAG-AFTRA president Ken Howard on Wednesday triggered mourning from Hollywood notables and union activists, with one calling this reporter from the streets of New York distraught and disbelieving to confirm the reports.
Howard’s colleague’s are deeply bereaved, and their sTTorrow is mixed with concern at what happens next for the union, which is at a critical juncture now and over the next 18 months. It’s the first time a SAG, AFTRA or SAG-AFTRA president has died in office, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Most immediately, union executive vice president Gabrielle Carteris is now acting president. A veteran of Beverly Hills, 90210, Carteris is in her second term as EVP. She was elected most recently last October, with 79 percent of the vote at the SAG-AFTRA biennial convention. She was first elected EVP in 2013, at the time a surprise candidate who ran without Howard’s endorsement during a complicated factional split and after appointing a member of the anti-merger MembershipFirst slate to her former board seat. Some haled that as a gracious reach across the aisle, while others called it a betrayal and a horse trade that helped her win the EVP seat. But in any case, she subsequently worked closely and harmoniously with Howard.
Prior to EVP, Carteris was a SAG-AFTRA national vice president for Los Angeles, and she served both predecessor unions before the SAG/AFTRA merger in 2012 in a variety of board, officer and delegate positions, including as a member of the G1 (Group for One Union) committee that developed the detailed merger plan.
But Carteris’ role as acting president lasts only until the next national board meeting, which THR has learned is set for April 9-10. At that point, the board will elect a replacement to serve out Howard’s term, which runs until October 2017. Whether Carteris will be elected president is unknown, although she seems the most likely pick.
Her elevation, if it happens, could set off a scramble for EVP. The other national officer, secretary-treasurer, is Jane Austin, who is also president of the Los Angeles local. But Austin hales from the MF slate that opposed union merger and is at odds with the dominant Unite for Strength faction.
Whether UFS would agree to elevate Austin is an open question, but it seems unlikely. The recent vote at an LA membership meeting by MF stalwarts to fire executive director David White – a symbolic vote with no practical effect – reopened wounds that date back a decade and more. Howard, along with White and others, helped guide SAG to merger with AFTRA after more than a half-century of discussion and various failed attempts.
“Ken was a remarkable leader and his powerful vision for this union was a source of inspiration for all of us,” said White in a statement. “He was an exceptional person and we are deeply saddened by his passing. The merger of SAG and AFTRA was something of a ‘North Star’ for him and, once he fixed upon it, he never wavered from that goal. My heart goes out to his loving wife, Linda, and to their family. He will be deeply missed.”
White and many of the union’s top staff and officers have been in New York negotiating the SAG-AFTRA commercials contracts with representatives of the advertising industry and of major national advertisers. That contract, likely worth over a billion dollars per year in earnings (exact figures are not available), is one of the union’s largest, and is rivaled only by the TV/theatrical contract.
Those talks may pause briefly, if at all, for SAG-AFTRA negotiators to process the loss of the union president – indeed, Carteris is also co-chair of the commercials negotiating committee – but no one is saying anything on the subject, as the negotiations are being held under a media blackout. The current contract expires in eight days, but an extension is likely if negotiations don’t conclude before then.
Later this year, the union will begin preparations for negotiating the TV/theatrical contract, which expires mid-2017. The corresponding DGA and WGA contracts also expire next year, and it has not yet been announced whether, as is frequently the case, the DGA will negotiate first. Whoever goes first will likely negotiate this fall, well in advance of the expirations.
For SAG-AFTRA, those negotiations, whenever they occur, will be conducted under the shadow of the next race for union president, which will take place roughly June through September next year. If Carteris is elevated to president next month, she’ll be the incumbent should she choose to run for reelection. Howard, who had served since 2009 as president of SAG and then SAG-AFTRA, had not been expected to run for reelection.
Also on the agenda is merger of the SAG and AFTRA health plans. An AFTRA plan trustee recently said he expected that merger to occur by this coming January, and for UFS, achieving that benchmark may well be critical to electoral success next year.
All in all, it will be an eventful 18 months. Howard was expected to be a steadying hand throughout the process, and will be sorely missed by many union members and colleagues. No information about funeral or memorial arrangement was available at this writing, but the union said that remembrance contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation and the Onyx and Breezy Foundation for the Welfare of Animals, for which Howard served as national spokesman.
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Our deepest condolences to President Howards family and friends!
Arl
The Ol’ SAG Watchdog
*Photo selected by Watchdog
Ken Howard, Award Winning Actor and SAG-AFTRA President, Dead at 71
SAG-AFTRA STATEMENT ON PASSING OF SAG-AFTRA PRESIDENT KEN HOWARD
March 23, 2016, 2:03pm
(LOS ANGELES, Mar. 23) — The following statement is released on behalf of SAG-AFTRA:
We are deeply saddened to announce that SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard passed away today.
Ken was an accomplished actor, author, teacher and unionist whose steady leadership as president of Screen Actors Guild positioned him to guide the union’s historic 2012 merger with American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In addition to his many professional credits, awards and other laudatory work, he led the union for nearly seven years and was devoted to the interests of its membership.
SAG-AFTRA Acting President Gabrielle Carteris said, “Ken was an inspirational leader and it is an incredible loss for SAG-AFTRA, for his family and for everyone who knew him. He was a light that never dimmed and was completely devoted to the membership. He led us through tumultuous times and set our union on a steady course of excellence. We will be forever in his debt.”
National Executive Director David White said, “Ken was a remarkable leader and his powerful vision for this union was a source of inspiration for all of us. He was an exceptional person and we are deeply saddened by his passing. He had a remarkable career and he never forgot what it was like to be a working performer. The merger of SAG and AFTRA was something of a “North Star” for him and, once he fixed upon it, he never wavered from that goal. My heart goes out to his loving wife, Linda, and to their family. He will be deeply missed.”
Ken leaves a legacy of service, commitment and superlative success. He was an extraordinary actor whose career spanned Broadway, motion pictures and television. He was a Tony and Emmy Award winner and is best remembered for his groundbreaking network series “The White Shadow.”
Ken was elected to the national board of directors of Screen Actors Guild in 2008 and to the SAG presidency in 2009. He served two terms and was widely viewed as the leader of the 2012 merger that created SAG-AFTRA, ensuring meaningful representation for nearly 160,000 actors, broadcasters and recording artists now and into the future. He was appointed co-president upon merger and in 2013, became the first elected president of SAG-AFTRA and was reelected in 2015.
He led numerous union committees including chairing the television and theatrical negotiating committee through several rounds of bargaining resulting in nearly $1 billion in gains for members.
He was a hands-on leader and worked closely with national executive director David White in returning the union to fiscal stability. Howard was recognized with the George Heller Memorial Gold Card in 2015 – the union’s highest service honor, and in 2013 received the Leadership Recognition Award for his work on merging the unions.
Ken was active in the International Federation of Actors and served SAG-AFTRA and the national labor movement as vice president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Department of Professional Employees, AFL-CIO.
Knowing how deeply Ken’s loss will be felt, SAG-AFTRA invites members and Ken’s fans and friends to send messages via the memorial wall on the sagaftra.org website. To send your message via email to farewellken@sagaftra.org.