Now that the moderate board members have managed to shake up the union’s leadership ranks, the Screen Actors Guild announced Wednesday that it’ll return to the negotiating table next Tuesday with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. (The actors have been working without a contract since last June.) However, this latest development didn’t sit well with SAG president Alan Rosenberg, who expressed anger over the ouster of chief negotiator Doug Allen on the SAG website Wednesday and not-so-humbly added that he and Allen (rather than the new leadership) deserve the credit for any gains SAG may achieve next week.
"Our negotiating committee has been replaced by a new, more moderate task force. You can expect that not long after this new team enters the bargaining room, they will be offered some ‘plum,’ some concession from the AMPTP that was said, heretofore, to be unattainable," Rosenberg writes. "This will be given by our employers, not as an act of good will, but as a demonstration of the fact that ‘reasonableness’ will be rewarded, while ‘militancy’ will be punished. Make no mistake, if this should occur, if there is any gain made, or if we are ultimately able to resist one of the massive roll backs that has been demanded, it will not be due to the skill of this new ‘negotiating team.’
"Anything that is won from this point forward will still be the result of the enormously hard work put in by Doug Allen and the majority of the negotiating team…. I am enormously proud of that team, led by Doug, of which I was a member."
I would hardly call the UFS faction of SAG “moderate.” Passive-aggressive (versus MF’s aggressive/bellicose) yes, moderate, no.
And the sooner that SAG gets rid of Rosenberg the better. He is also one of the major problems with our union leadership. If it were up to him, we would go out on strike and achieve nothing. I feel the new negotiating team will get the job done in spite of Allen and Rosenberg`s ineptness.
Have our vain/self-glamorizing actors thought about the destruction they are causing to below-the-line employees. I will NEVER support an actors’ contract talk again. In these trying times their damn egos mean more to them than any talk of brotherhood. I truly hope they get NOTHING
Are they serious about asking the studios for money especially the way the state of the economy is. People r losing homes,jobs and some cases their families and these actors want more money. What the#?>.&. It must suck to make 5 million a year. I guess u want more. What a joke.
I really am disappointed in SAG during this recession time! I really hope they take a look and think about what they are asking for. People are losing their jobs left and right in this economy! They will be responsible for putting more people out of work if they keep this up!