Making sense of the SAG mess

When readers find out that Hollywood actors are thinking about going on strike, their response is usually something like, "In this economy? Are they nuts?"

However, like everything else in the long-running drama that is the Screen Actors Guild, it's just not that simple.

Even if you know the difference between a force majeure and a force of nature, there's a lot to sort through in the SAG battles, which pit not only labor against management but labor against labor, overpaid actors against underemployed ones, hardliners against moderates.

Last year, the Writers Guild of America poured sand into the entertainment industry's transmission with a 14-week walkout. The writers had been underpaid for decades on home video and weren't about to let management underpay them for new media -- not when executives were bragging to investors about how much money they were making off the Internet.

The writers not only were united, they enjoyed the full support of SAG, the 120,000-member union for working actors. Writers I've spoken to say they will absolutely support actors in a work stoppage -- but quietly, they don't think it's such a hot idea. The mood among labor has changed. Partly that's the economy's fault, partly it's strike fatigue. The writers' walkout dragged on longer and did more damage than either side thought it would.

And partly, it's the uneasiness caused by open warfare between rival factions within SAG.

To get a better sense of this, I stood outside SAG headquarters this week as the 70 or so members of the union's national board arrived for an emergency meeting in an effort to move beyond the issues that have so bitterly divided them.

Both sides were leafletting and holding handmade signs for board members as they walked the gauntlet between the parking garage and the SAG offices. (The MF leaflet is on the left, UFS on the right.)

At times tempers flared. Two anti-strike leafletters, both women, complained of being the subject of "the most condescending remarks" throughout the morning. I stood between a former actor on "thirtysomething" and an agent who opposes a strike as they yelled insults at each other. Actor William Daniels told me to talk to the hand after he decided I wasn't asking friendly enough questions.

On one side, there's Membership First, the party to which the union's current president, former "L.A. Law" star Alan Rosenberg, and its chief negotiator Doug Allen belong. Membership First wants the rank and file of SAG to authorize a strike. They think anything less will cause a cataclysmic "rollback" of decades' worth of hard-won benefits for actors.

Jerry Gelb

I also spoke with actors who had joined Unite for Strength, a newer movement that believes the current SAG leadership has badly mishandled negotiations with management. It elected a slew of candidates to the board last September and appears to be gaining momentum.

Both sides agree on one thing: The current deal on the table from management stinks. It's got, among other things, a menacing proposal to roll back the longstanding force majeure clause, which required studios to continuing paying actors at half salary for up to five weeks in the event of a writers' strike.

"Without force majeure protection, it drives a wedge between SAG and the Writers Guild," said entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel, whose blogging on the SAG situation is widely read around Hollywood.

Management, meanwhile, claims that SAG is being equally unreasonable by asking for higher cuts of DVD and new media revenue than the writers got last year in their negotiated deal following the strike. The other major actors' union, AFTRA, also signed a contract last year that reflected the gains won by the writers.

But Membership First members like Ed Asner, a former SAG president and native son of Kansas City, aren't impressed.

"In the past the writers have been the point men in contracts," Asner told me. "This time, they failed. And unfortunately, it is up to us to try to forge a future for our members."

Asner, who'll be in Lawrence Feb. 4 to revive his role as William Jennings Bryan in "The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial," was holding a sign that read, "Keep Us Rich Actors Working - Vote No on Strike Authorization." That's a jab at A-list actors like Tom Hanks and George Clooney, who in December signed an open letter urging SAG leadership to settle with management now and wait until the next contract -- when it can unite with the writers and AFTRA -- to demand better terms.

Many of the letter's signatories also get a producer credit on projects, which provides added compensation above what their SAG contract calls for.

"My sign is facetious," said Asner. "Those actors who produce want to avoid a strike. They are doing everything to see that it doesn't happen."

A smaller number of Unite for Strength members were on hand. One of them was former SAG board member Jerry Gelb, who said the current leaders were costing the union more than $1 million a week in lost residuals by not agreeing to a new deal.

"If they were willing to give in on a couple of points that they're not going to get no matter what, (management) would probably be willing to go back to the table and come up with something commensurate with what AFTRA signed," Gelb said. In other words, force majeure is a bargaining chip, nothing more.

Hanging with the Wildbunch

Long after other board members had filed in and the leafletters had gone home, I saw Rosenberg suddenly appear, walking quickly from the garage to the SAG building. Without breaking stride, Rosenberg said the only four words he would utter for public consumption all day.

Asked what he thought would happen inside the meeting, Rosenberg replied, "I have no idea."

He wasn't kidding. The meeting turned into a 30-hour marathon and in the end, according to a statement from Rosenberg, resulted in "no substantive actions." The blog SAG Watch, citing anonymous board members, reported that Membership First filibustered to keep Unite for Strength from calling for a vote on removing Allen as lead negotiator. The stalling tactic worked. Allen kept his job -- but word soon leaked out that he no longer had the support of most board members.

Later, I spoke with Conrad Goode, a Missouri native, former NFL player and SAG member. Goode has sold several screenplays -- he's seeking backers for a film about the founder of the Chiefs, Lamar Hunt -- and he picketed during the writers' strike. Though he's not an A-lister and his acting income is mainly from residuals, he firmly opposes a strike. This week's boardroom shenanigans only confirmed his low opinion of the people running SAG.

"I don't think we're going to get a better deal," said Goode. "But I think our leadership has backed us into a corner. It shouldn't have ever come to this."

Previously on TV Barn: TVB with the striking Letterman writers (video)