The challengers are taking direct aim at Membership First, the
Hollywood-based political group within SAG that holds a slight majority on the
national board and came to power in 2005 vowing to take a harder line in
negotiations with the studios.
Dissidents blame the group for bungling the current negotiations and
spearheading an ill-fated campaign to discredit the smaller actors union, the
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. SAG recently conducted an
unsuccessful campaign to defeat a contract negotiated by AFTRA, an effort that
deeply divided the union.
The political infighting -- both within the guild and between the two unions
-- has enabled the studios to pursue a divide-and-conquer strategy that has
weakened SAG's leverage at the bargaining table. Indeed, SAG leaders blame
AFTRA for playing into the studios' hands by undercutting the bigger union's
negotiations by agreeing to what they view as a weak contract.
Calling itself United for Strength, the dissident group is running a slate of
candidates to fill 11 seats in the powerful Hollywood division that are up for
grabs on the national board. In addition, the group is competing for another
22 seats for those who serve as alternates to replace board members who often
are working.
The candidates include Kate Walsh and Amy Brenneman, the stars of
"Private Practice"; Doug Savant, who plays the harried husband Tom
Scavo on "Desperate Housewives"; and Adam Arkin, known for his role
as Aaron Shutt in "Chicago Hope."
In all, nearly one-third of the board's 71 seats will be decided in the Sept.
18 election (the deadline for declaring candidacies is Thursday). Although
Rosenberg has one more year in his term, the results could be pivotal in
gauging support for his negotiating strategy and could change the balance of
power in the notoriously fractious 120,000-member union. "We think the current
leadership has put SAG on a dangerous path," said Ned Vaughn, a veteran
character actor and spokesman for the slate.
Vaughn helped organize a recent petition signed by more than 1,500 actors,
including Meryl Streep and Charlie Sheen, that urged the board to limit
contract voting in the union only to members who work at least an average of
one day a year. The board rebuffed the demand. He and other candidates want to
see the two actors unions merge.
"It definitely doesn't help us negotiate a contract when there are two
unions pitted against each other," Walsh said. "We need to be one
union."
That could be hard to accomplish, however, given the deep animus between
leaders of both unions and years of turf wars that culminated earlier this
year in AFTRA suspending its longtime bargaining partnership with SAG.
Previous efforts to merge the unions have failed amid concerns that SAG would
lose its autonomy.
Not surprisingly, the incumbent group is running its own slate of high-profile
actors, including Keith Carradine, who plays a special agent in the Showtime
series "Dexter." Other high-profile board members who belong to
Membership First include incumbents Elliot Gould and Justine Bateman.
Kent McCord, first vice president of the SAG and one of the leaders of
Membership First, accused critics of "a pretty desperate attempt to
divide the union. The fact of the matter is in these negotiations working
members have a real concern about the issues on the table and, overall, are
united in what the union is trying to do."
Rosenberg said his critics are misguided. "The future of SAG and the
ability of actors hangs in the balance here, and it's AFTRA that has put us
all in jeopardy."
Infighting within SAG is nothing new. Through its 75-year history, the guild
has been riven with conflicts between New York and Hollywood and sparring
between liberal and conservative factions. Some are still fuming over a
contract negotiated by former SAG President Ronald Reagan nearly a half
century ago, which limited the payment of residuals from movies rerun on TV
only to movies filmed after 1960.
"There's permanent reservoir of disgruntled actors, which tends to make
for militancy," said David Prindle, author "The Politics of
Glamour," a book on the history of SAG.
The latest power struggle emerged in the late 1990s, when a group of dissident
actors, then known as Performers Alliance, challenged the leadership of SAG
President Richard Masur. The actors were deeply unhappy with a commercials
contract he had negotiated, and they backed a rival candidate, Bill Daniels,
who led the union through a six-month commercials strike -- the longest in
SAG's history.
Although actors secured higher residual payments when the strike ended, the
walkout took a heavy toll on members and caused some productions to shift
permanently to other countries.
Unpopularity over the strike fueled the election of former "Little House
on the Prairie" star Melissa Gilbert, a moderate who soon found herself
battling many of the same actors who fought with Masur. They blocked several
of her initiatives, including a proposed merger with AFTRA and an agreement
with talent agents.
And in September 2005, the group took control of the board under the
leadership of Rosenberg, who immediately vowed to take a harder line in
negotiations and demand an increase in the share of residuals actors get from
DVD sales.
The new board fired executive director Greg Hessinger, who was only a few
months on the job. They replaced him with Doug Allen, a former official with
the NFL Players Assn., who has been praised by Hollywood supporters as a
strong leader but is blamed by others, including New York board members, for
triggering the fallout with AFTRA.