Bullying Screen Actors Guild Does More Harm Than Good
by Frank DeMartiniA few months ago I wrote a column about the effect IATSE’s wage increase in Michigan would have on future production in Michigan. Just recently, the company I have my first look deal with decided to produce another picture in Michigan and was informed my column made it impossible for IATSE to negotiate or help us in any way. They basically said this is the deal, take it or leave it if you want to shoot here; your employee ruined it for you.
My company then proceeded to disavow any knowledge of my column and said that what I write is of my own doing and not the policy of the company. This is true. It is my own doing. No one tells me what to write or censors my editorial content.
I still believe IATSE is harming the burgeoning film industry in Michigan. I believe that if IATSE was doing the right thing in Michigan, the state of Michigan would be putting all of the other tax-incentive states out of business. Producers would be running there in droves.
Unions are supposed to be the mechanism to level the playing field for the working man. Their job is to protect the working man from “the man,” and to keep their members employed fairly. Isn’t employment what unions are really all about: Especially now when unemployment is so rampant all over the United States, particularly in Michigan and California. You would think the unions would be bending over backwards to work with “the man” in a mutually beneficial situation. Let us all do whatever is necessary to keep employment in the United States; not Eastern Europe or Asia.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with IATSE in Michigan and with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) anywhere. SAG does their best to stop movies from being made instead of helping the independent producer hire their mass of unemployed.
I will now give some examples of how SAG harms the independent producer. My first look deal is with Nu Image, Inc., one of, if not largest independent production companies in the business. In the last 10 years, this company has produced more than 150 films ranging in size from one million dollars to sixty million dollars. It has employed more than 1,000 actors; the majority of which are members of SAG.
Does SAG do anything to make life easier for this company? No. SAG does everything in their power to stop this company from making movies. In fact, over the past ten years, there have been many incidents where this company has had to threaten to shut a movie down and sue SAG in order to get any cooperation whatsoever.
This is a company that employs, pay actors millions of dollars and pays residuals to actors on a regular basis. Can you tell me one true independent that has been doing this since 1992? Probably not.
Just last week, Nu Image was about to shoot a thirty million-dollar film and was held hostage the day before principal photography was to start over a dispute regarding the SAG Bond which is a “guarantee” that actors will be paid. SAG insisted on a bond in the approximate amount of $400,000 which was based upon erroneous SAG employment figures provided by the production staff on location. SAG did not care. They were going to call actors’ agents and shut the movie down the day before it was scheduled to start. The matter was resolved at the twenty-fourth hour, but not before threats were made from both sides that almost put the picture in jeopardy. At one point, a SAG employee told us, well if a production employee provided erroneous figures, you should fire him/her. Is this the way a union represents workers?
Another nightmare for the independent producer is the SAG security interest which is a lien on the film’s copyright for the life of the copyright. The theory behind this is to protect the actors against unscrupulous producers failing to pay residuals. Fine. It makes sense for one-off producers or producers with a bad reputation. But, is it necessary for a major independent production company with a history of paying residuals? Why must SAG demand cash – which is desperately needed to fund the production – be removed from the budget to pay SAG deposits? Why must the threats go back and forth every time any request is made?
Then after all of the stress with SAG during production, the independent must beg for the return of the SAG Bond after it has paid the actors in full. As you already know, this amount of cash can be substantial and for smaller companies is actually needed to complete the movie. Thank God, Nu Image has the capability to complete movies without this money. I have heard horror stories from other companies where the SAG bond has caused foreclosure on loans and investor liens because sometimes they will just not return it. Sometimes they unilaterally convert it to a residuals bond to guarantee the payment of residuals.
Sometimes the reason given for its non-return is absolutely asinine. For example, SAG has a document that must be completed on every film to show minority hiring. You must show the number of females and people of color hired by the production. This form is a survey and nothing more. There are no quotas in the SAG system and a producer may hire whoever they choose. However, if this form is not filed by the producer, the bond is not returned. The same is true of every piece of paper that SAG employees have on their checklist. No one will think out of the box. No one will pull the trigger and give the money back until this checklist is complete.
And, no one will give the money back with any interest that matters. Back in the day when CD’s were paying 4-5%, SAG was paying 1.5% or less on the bond. I’m sure now they are holding money in some cases for more than a year and paying 0% interest. I wonder what they do with the money they earn?
Lastly, the SAG arbitration system must be discussed. Talk about an uneven playing field! Prior to producing films, I was an entertainment attorney. In all, I have been in the business for 25 years, give or take. During that time, I have not seen one SAG arbitration ruled in favor of the producer. In fact, some arbitrators on the SAG list have never ruled in favor of management. I can think of a few names that are on my strike list just because of personal experiences.
In one circumstance, a former SAG Board member, Seymour Cassel, was hired by a company that I was involved with. Mr. Cassel, being on the SAG Board, forced the union to pursue a grievance on his behalf. That matter was fairly simple. He believed he had a two week guarantee of employment and the employer felt there was no guarantee and paid him for the one week he actually worked.
The matter went to arbitration and Mr. Cassel won. He was given the second week. It seems like it should have been a swearing contest and the arbitrator just chose to believe the representatives of Mr. Cassel. Sorry, nope.
It was much more complicated than that. Mr. Cassel had actually signed both a SAG deal memo and a long form agreement, neither of which mentioned anything about a two-week guarantee. In fact, they specifically stated there was no guarantee. But, there was an interoffice memo from Mr. Cassel’s agent that said the deal was for a two week guarantee. This document was not signed by anybody. In legal parlance, it not only was pure hearsay, but it violated the merger rule. It should not even have been entered into evidence.
This did not matter to the arbitrator. He ruled for Mr. Cassel based upon the interoffice memo.
By the way, Mr. Cassel was just thrown off the SAG Board last week for “conduct unbecoming a member,” and his membership was suspended. Variety stated that Mr. Cassel was considering filing for “financial core” status which would permit him to work on union and non-union films during the course of his suspension.
“Financial Core” is a really interesting animal. It is based upon a Supreme Court decision (Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988)) in which a union member sued the union because he did not want to be associated with the Union’s political lobbying activities. The Supreme Court found for the union member and stated that no one could be obligated to pay for the political positions of the union. They only had to be obligated to pay union dues for the “financial core” of the union.
Based on this Supreme Court ruling, any member of any union in the country can go “Financial Core.” All it requires is that they write a one sentence letter to their union stating that they have elected Financial Core membership. A “Financial Core” member of any union is still covered by all union benefits such as pension, health and welfare. They can then work on all union and non-union movies without being subject to any penalty from the union at all. The only things a “Financial Core” member of a union cannot do is vote in union elections or hold elected positions within the union.
Personally I am amazed that droves of actors, directors, writers and crew members have not chosen Financial Core membership. Maybe it’s because the unions all try to keep it a total secret and will do almost anything to avoid their members becoming aware of its benefits. Imagine – union members being able to decide for themselves who they will work for and under what conditions. It would mean they have to be treated as adults – not obedient children by their unions. It would certainly make life easier for independent producers and allow them to spend their hard won cash on making movies not paying for union bureaucracies.
Maybe Seymour Cassel will start a trend – who knows. It may even help the employment situation for actors and all member of the entertainment industry. After all, isn’t that what we need to end this recession; more employment.
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37 Comments
I am gobsmacked. Self-defeating idiocy of the highest order. I am going to tell all my SAG friends about the Core Financial option..
Thanks for the info on "Financial Core". If this card check nonsense becomes law many more of us may need to exercise this option in the future.
Perfect group to be working in MIchigan—-my pathetic home state never misses an industry they can't ruin with unions, and the right to pay for no work.
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They went to the same business school that Jessie Sharpton went to. SAG's relevance is a remnant of when Hollywood was run by giants and cages were needed for the used ants to have a place to live. As for IDCBOF initials what are they? For you did not give what the initials stand for, and don't give me that tone I give my wife when she asks me who Iggy Pop is.
The fincial core option violates the Supreme Court Ruling. By not allowing members who opt for Financial Core not to vote for union positions or hold elected office in the union SAG has taken a step beyond the ruling. The ruling only stated that a union member should not be forced to pay for political lobbying. The way SAG has implemented this rule it not only re-enforces the stated political opinions of SAG but also ensures that no challenge can be made by those who have political differences.
A SAG member has two choices:
1. Keep some dues money but lose any voting rights within the union.
2. Keep voting rights and try and effect internal change but have your dues go to support political policies you are against.
SAG needs to be sued again.
SAG is nothing more then an extortion racket and a legal mob. The producer's who pay their members are considered the enemy and are to be squeezed as much as they can. The SAG actors are in the middle between the union and the people that hire and pay actors. Filmmakers like Nu Image who are higher up on the food chain then I am are entrepreneurs, our business is making films by sub-contracting all the help to make a film.
No union has the right to interfere in the day to day operation of a man trying to make a success of a business. I have always felt that SAG has broken countless of Federal laws that a major law suit can be applied to bust them up if not end their reign of intimidation. Lets face it, they don't give a damn for their members only the fat cats up at the top. The thousands of actors are treated badly by everyone.
I have always felt that the old studio contract system needs to be re-established with some of the benefits that are common place today, there weren't considered in the 1930s. If an independent company creates their own production and distribution outlets and they put actors under contract they then can create their own profit sharing program based upon all the revenue from all the films produced or picked up by the company.
A company can provide the same benefits that all the unions provide without any thugs trying to extort more money from any film that is being produced. You get rid of SAG bonds and actors calling SAG to complain about the company. We have the right as entrepreneurs to work in this country or outside this country and not deal with any mafia like organization that tries to demand a tribute from any production company.
This is how the independent distributors deal with filmmakers once they have your negative. As filmmaking entrepreneurs who provide jobs and take the liability for the funding for everyone to play Andy Hardy we need to freeze out these 1930 union dinosaurs and keep everything and everyone in house and all profits and interest are kept and shared within the company. A system can be design taken the best from the golden age and today so the main purpose if for all crew, actors and management all work together for a common goal to make films and share in the profit. If any company shares the profit with its employees you end up having a loyal group of people that will weed out the slackers.
As far as SAG actors being blackballed for working in a company like I mentioned, the only people that this might attract are conservatives actors, writers, and directors anyways. Conservatives are always being blackballed and SAG won't protect them. Why be part of a Union you are paying tribute to if they won't protect you? If you happen to speak out publicly on, lets say Gay Marriage and all of a sudden your phone stops ringing. Who protects the conservative?? So they are useless, we all need to band together and create our own factory to make our own films and No Liberal Need Apply and we don't need to deal with any union and their thuggery.
Unions are rooted in Communism and Socialism period. You want to know who to blame for all the work being outsourced to Taiwan and China? unions
Unions have destroyed hundreds of companies across North America.
Unions promote laziness, whiny entitlement attitudes, and promotions that are not based in merit but years of service.
Companies that are tired of being held hostage to unions, simply outsource. I would too if I was coerced by unions on how to operate my own company.
They are the antithesis of capitalism and a free market
unions do not represent workers, they represent the union. when are union members going to figure this out. the only people making out like bandits are the union leaders, and the politicians they prefer to donate to. look at all the cases of unions squandering money on behalf of self enrichment, and screwing their card holding members.
This explains Sean Penn's movie in Venezuela, but there SAG is substituted for CAG, which costs less for now.
You folks have pretty much ruined your chances of attending the union picnic next summer.
As recent events have instructed us unions seem to wither over time unless socialistic
governments give them extended life. We will see how long they continue if GM and Chrysler are
the examples.
Since it is my company that employs and pays me it's they I work for, not the union.
Say it 'aint so!
Do you mean to tell us that a group of people who utilize threats,intimidation and coercion(including physical)wouldn't be a good influence in the workplace?
"Card check" is just one example of the intimidation tactics that these thugs need to maintain their existence,for if the voter knew that these goons are looking over his shoulder when voting,he'll keep them and their violence in mind.
i'll bet it will surprise you, but the union controls your job, not you, or the company you work for. unions think the risks business take to make a profit, somehow belong to the worker, as much as the company. but if your company takes a bad risk, you can walk away, but they are left to pay for the bad risk. if you would be willing to take a loss on bad risks, perhaps you should be able to stake a claim on the reward of risk (profits), but try and run that past your union?
That should read..'Does More Harm THAN Good'…..not 'then' good….sorry, internet peeve.
A few years back, my company NOW Translations (http://www.nowtranslations.com/) called SAG here in Los Angeles asking if they had a list of actors who were native language speakers in Spanish, Japanese, Italian, etc. We do voice over work for films, games, and the internet, so such a list would be a great help. Not only was SAG not helpful, they were hostile. They demanded to know why we wanted to steal SAG actors and not pay the going wage. I didn't even have a chance to explain that my call was to give the actors work at whatever SAG members earned or why else would I have called SAG? But I never got the chance. The person wouldn't even let me talk. Within about 30 seconds she was shouting at me. I hung up and needless to day, haven't called SAG since. Oh, but we've done plenty of voice-over work after that.
I don't see IDCBOF….do you mean IATSE…click the link in the first paragraph after the joker picture.
I was born into a union family, my Dad was one of their prime trouble makers. He worked for the Department of Public Works for our small town, and he taught me the garbage men should go on strike the day before they collect trash in the Mayor's part of town, to make sure he gets and earful from every single neighbor on the street.
Unions always had a prominent place in history class, the saviors of the little people, making the evil capitalists pay their fair share. When I grew up, graduated, and moved into the working class, I saw what unions did. When I used to work for IBM, and they were laying off thousands of local workers, the union of contractors that were janitors decided they'd rather go on strike than take a pay cut. So IBM fired them all.
My only dealing with unions was trying to get into the electrical workers union apprenticeship program. I had a degree and two and half years of trade school, I should have been a shoe-in. Then I got a letter from them, several applications (including mine) had been "dropped" off a desk, so they never notified me by mail of the date for the entrance exam. How ever, if I – and enough of the others 'misplaced' applicants – wanted to appeal, they'd take it under consideration, otherwise, there was always next year.
At this point in my life, I question everything I was ever taught about unions. After all, all my teachers were union members.
Those that lead unions are very similar to our pre historic cave dwelling relatives that wielded physical force to get that which they wanted/needed.
It is simply brute force that allows them to get what they do.
I'll take peaceful cooperation any day over this Neanderthal like behavior.
The only reason that they continue their behavior is that it is illegal to shoot them.
Unions had their place decades ago when they were needed. They are now dinosaurs that should have been extinct long ago. They fool their members into thinking they are there for their protection. The only people they are protecting are themselves and their cushy jobs. It's impossible to shoot in this town any longer and most of the problem is the unions. Their time has passed. The sad part is they haven't realized it yet. Good article Frank…long in coming.
The producer's who pay their members are considered the enemy and are to be squeezed as much as they can.
Unions have a sort of institutionalized paranoia, I've noticed — they keep thinking that every outside organization they deal with is trying to screw them over, so they might as well try to screw them back, if they can't screw them first.
It is that sort of behavior on the part of leadership of SAG, that I not only resigned the National Board of Directors, but also my membership.
I feel strongly there is a place for unions, in partnership with enlightened management, however both sides now have become so protective of their position, work is going away for the union members and huge amounts of money, are going into the pockets of a few big stars, and most management. I wish the industry well….because without SAG and AFTRA and others, there are actors who would work for free, just to get to act….which is the flip side of the "coin of arrogance" being flipped back and forth between the sides involved.
Speaking as a Michiganian: better that it go overseas than feed one dime to any labor union. We have 15% unemployment here for reasons that are almost entirely the fault of organized labor. Every dime you give a union, you get back dollars in lost opportunities.
Plus, I don't believe Granholm's subsidy to get movies in here is in any way a job creator equal to the tax money SPENT to get them here. So if it derails that it's fine with me.
Multinational corporation IBM fires all its janitors because they won't take a pay cut — and the union is the bad guy in your mind? How much were those janitors paid? How much of a cut was demanded? How big a pay cut did the CEO and other top execs take before deciding they should slash the incomes of the lowest-level employees?
What a sad, sick world you people dream of.
Fordprefect: There have been studies on the tax subsidies in Canada where they have been going on for 20 years which show that every dollar spent in these motion picture subsidies brings back more than three dollars to the economy. They have been very successful in Canada and in Louisiana and New Mexico which have them the longest in the states. In fact, both Louisiana and New Mexico have a film industry that is blossoming as a result of them. The City of Shreveport is doing everything possible to keep filming there. The same should be true of Detroit and Ann Arbor.
The job benefit is great, but it's also the underlying benefits to the community. Support industries, such as restaurant, clothing, dry cleaning, finance, travel, legal and accounting all get a boost from this money. And, all of this then trickles down further.
In Vancouver and Toronto they will do just about anything to keep the motion picture dollars flowing. Unfortunately in California, nobody cares anymore.
Yup, unions are really on a roll.
Up here in Puget Sound, Boeing, a Seattle-originated company since 1912, is moving its Dreamliner 787 production, with its thousands of high-paying jobs, to South Carolina while the Machinist union whines, "but we offered a ten-year no-strike agreement!" Last fall, with the economy in the crapper and delivery deadlines looming, the union voted to walk out and leave Boeing stranded.
Boeing's action says, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." South Carolina machinists voted in September to decertify the union, and they will get the jobs.
"Isn’t employment what unions are really all about: "
Well you certainly don't drink DNC KoolAid. So what is it? Smoking buds? Anti-depressants? Really. You didn't just ask if employment is what unions are really about did you Frank?
I mean. If that quote was attributed to Michael Moore my laptop would have received another coffee bath. Cmon Frank. Children in Hawaii don't go to school on Friday because "the union" won't take a pay cut. WTF. Meanwhile people all over the State are unemployed. UNEMPLOYED. YET the teachers couldn't take a little pay cut.
You know I see how well the union does its job. The joke about one guy digging and three watching is no joke anymore. America is paying for UNION LEADERSHIP which for anyone with a K-6 education knows is an oxymoron. And UNION LEADERSHIP doesn't give a flying fish about you, me or our country.
If we don't break up the grip the UNION LEADERSHIP has on America then we'll all be working for the mafia.
With all due respect to Mr. DeMartini and others who may be interested, Screen Actors Guild has a great history, which I invite you to take a look at:
http://www.sag.org/history
Ironic that today's BH Open Thread would have one of SAG's founding members, Boris Karloff, as a subject.
I think more actors don't do it because the full members would treat them as if they were scabs. It might effect their ability to get work in union states (like CA and Mich.).
No wonder movies mostly suck. People are being choked to death by yet another union. Great.
Like most leftist organizations, unionists talk a lot about representing the common worker when what they're really doing is securing their own positions at the top of the hierarchy and preventing anyone from interfering with the gains they obtain on the backs of others. At the same time, they gum up the works, preventing people from getting jobs, extorting money from those that do (while ignoring their legitimate pleas for assistance), preventing business from being profitable (for anyone but themselves) and create a climate that is hostile toward business.
But then, I live in California, so I admit to a bit of bitterness where unions are concerned.
If tax-incentives are so great, Michigan should be trying them with other industries… automobile manufacturing for example. Why should film making be subsidized? (Michigan pays money to producers – more than simply excusing them from taxes.)
Uhmm… are you really from Michigan?!?!? I don't think so, if you don't know that the correct term for us is Michigander.
I just laughed myself silly watching an Ealing Studios comedy (A Run for Your Money) – the product of an old fashioned factory studio, so I could not agree more about the benefits of permanently hiring a crew and cast and concentrating on making films instead of negotiating with a bunch of sleazy hangers-on who serve no *useful* function.
"Unions are supposed to be the mechanism to level the playing field for the working man. Their job is to protect the working man from “the man,” and to keep their members employed fairly."
No, unions are supposed to artificially raise the price of labor by restricting its supply.
"Isn’t employment what unions are really all about"
Yes, unions are all about employment. They're all about securing employment for members of the union at the expense of other people. Also, securing employment for certain minorities within the union at the expense of other union members.
"Unions had their place decades ago when they were needed."
I'll never understand this mindset. Perhaps, perhaps, unions were helpful for things like safety, which all the members, more or less, would agree upon, and where it's important things get done as soon as possible. And possibly, so that the bosses don't exploit individual workers' ignorance. Unions are an efficient means of spreading information in the labor market.
But as regards what most people praise the unions for: high wages, benefits, shorter workdays, etc., there was almost absolutely no need. What do people think, the Fat Cats had big piles of money they were sitting on, and only made the workers work on cumbersome or outdated machines, for long hours, with little pay, and at a subsistence leve because they loved their profits? Or, maybe, because they thought it was funny.
(Continued)
We can't go back in time and see what would have happened without unions, but more than likely, the great leap forward in standard of living, rising wages, and the eight hour workday were made possible by business, not unions. Most businesses, and economies of scale especially, garner profits in the margin. It's not as if the government could step in, at the behest of unions, and by fiat make the enterprise successful enough to afford less time and less work from labor without adversely affecting the profit margin, which would threaten the entire concern.
The only thing unions can do, so long as capital is not efficient enough to afford the comfortable lifestyle modern people are accustomed to, is screw other laborers. They can restrict the labor supply, through their own efforts but mostly through help from the government, by excluding competition. And they continue to do so even today. Why else do they so hate scabs? Why else do they so violently oppose outsourcing and free trade?
Because the great enemy of the union is the excess supply of labor out there, waiting to be used, threatening to take away the precious benefits they've squeezed out of the Fat Cats.
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