September 5, 2008 by WW.

This notice went out today, advertising a “caucus” - not an official W&WC on Interactive and Animation. You may remember that only a few days ago Interactive commitee chair Michael Bell sent out an e-mail complaining that AFTRA was planning its own W&W process for interactive.

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JOINT INTERACTIVE GAMES AND TV ANIMATION CAUCUS TO BE HELD
 
All paid-up SAG members who work under the Interactive Media Agreements and the TV Animation Agreements are urged to attend this important contract caucus. This could be the last meeting before negotiations begin on the Interactive and Animation Contracts and it is vital that you attend

This important caucus will be held in Los Angeles (see time and day below). Members of the voice community who work these contracts will be given an update on the upcoming Interactive Media Agreement and the TV Animation Contract negotiations. Group discussion will follow the update and cover many areas of concern to the V.O. Community such as AFTRA holding pre-negotiation meetings with Interactive Industry Representatives and AFTRA’s stated intention of negotiating this contract separately from SAG, residuals for V.O. work in Interactive Games and any other issues you the V.O. community wish to discuss.
 
When: Wednesday, September 24th
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Where: James Cagney Board Room
5757 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
(Validated parking available for structure behind building)
 
This is your chance to participate in the future of these contracts. Come early and bring your membership card. Please forward this notice to any member who also works under these agreements
 
Performers not located in Los Angeles but who find themselves in L.A. are welcome to attend.

Posted in Animation Contract, Interactive | Print | 6 Comments »

September 5, 2008 by Editor.

We were pleasantly surprised at the first of the interviews of independent candidates conducted this afternoon by Jonathan Handel. A veteran actor, Dan Gilvezan, number 20 on the Hollywood ballot, showed himself to be a remarkably level headed professional, who, even if he’s not elected this time, is clearly someone to watch.

Gilvezan told Handel he had voted for Membership First’s full slate the last time around, approving them taking a hard line, but, Gilvezan says it’s time to recognize that the tactics haven’t worked, and that it’s time for a change. “The current leadership is taking SAG in completely the wrong direction,” he said, “it’s time we got some new blood and some new ideas in the boardroom.”

Gilvezan said he approves of virtually the entire Unite for Strength platform, and isn’t with them on their slate only because he decided to run after that slate has been put together.

Merger, he said, is the solution to SAG/AFTRA problems. When asked how that would be possible given the bad blood between the two unions, he said new leadership and a new board could change that over time.

Gilvezan’s answer to the Doug Allen question was polished, and, we think, right on the money. “I don’t think he has to go,” Gilvezan said, noting that Allen works for the board and if the board directs him to a new strategy, he may go along. However, Gilvezan said, Allen may choose to leave if his supporters at Membership First lose their grip on power.

Gilvezan offered one specific new idea, to offer members an option of turning down residual checks that are small change and donating them to the SAG Foundation, in order to save SAG the cost of processing and mailing the checks, which can be literally pennies. This kind of thinking, he said, has been back burnered, while the union hurts itself with wars on AFTRA and wars between the political factions.

In sum, all we can say is this is someone we didn’t know before, but are greatful to Jonathan Handel for bringing to our attention. Ned Vaughn and his group may want to give Dan Gilvezan a call.

Posted in SAG Politics | Print | 5 Comments »

September 5, 2008 by WW.

Jonathan Handel, who last week interviewed spokespeople for the Membership First and Unite for Strength slates, has now interviewed some of the independent candidates. The recording is available at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/689529

We haven’t watched to all of it yet, but will, and will get our analysis up as soon as we can.

Here’s the list of those appearing, in order of appearance:

Dan Gilvezan (#20)
Lainie Miller (#7)
Damara Reilly (#10)
Susan Boyd Joyce (#12)
DeWayne Williams (#22)
John Tremaine (#45)
Mark Carlton (#58 )
Scott Tracy Griffin (#83)
Rico Bueno (#27)

Posted in SAG Politics | Print | 2 Comments »

September 5, 2008 by admin.

The latest e-mail, after in response to the Unite for Strength demand for information we told you about earlier today, SAG staff sent Unite for Strength leaders a copy of Doug Allen’s note to the National Board defending the Push Poll Trojan.
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Dear Doug,

Michelle Bennett forwarded me the letter you wrote to board members today about the coding of the response cards included in the contract update mailing. She suggested that your message is responsive to the email two colleagues and I sent to you earlier today, but several important questions remain unanswered.

– Who made the decision that members’ responses would be identifiable by name? Your message seems to imply that you made this decision on your own. Is that correct?

– Who approved that decision? You still haven’t made it clear who approved the decision. It appears the board had no substantive knowledge that the coding would allow members’ votes to be identified by name; otherwise your message attempting to explain it wouldn’t have been necessary. Stating that each response card contains a unique barcode hardly constitutes disclosure that the coding also allows the card to be connected to individual members by name. So again, who knew that the coded response cards would allow for a record of how members voted by name and who approved that decision?

–Why was the mailer, which clearly casts the current leadership in a positive light, sent during the board election? Even if electioneering was not the intent of the mailer, the risk that it will unduly influence votes is nonetheless real. What prevented the mailer from being sent before or after the election? In light of the unorthodox coding of the response cards, it is imperative that all questions about the propriety of this mailing be answered.

Besides failing to address these important questions, your message does not offer a plausible explanation for the coding of the response cards.

You offer two reasons for the coding: (1) to ensure that no member “skews the poll” by voting more than once; and (2) to allow demographic analysis of the response to determine whether it constitutes a representative sample of the membership. Curiously, the reasons you gave the board in your letter are different from the one printed on the response cards: “This postcard includes a unique barcode to ensure that only active members in good standing participate in this poll.”

With respect to the first of your two reasons, it simply is not necessary to tie the coding on individual response cards to specific members in order to protect against double voting. As long as each card has a unique number on it, it couldn’t be photocopied and submitted multiple times.

The second of your reasons might explain the need to tie the response cards to individual members if the process you describe were a reasonable method of obtaining a demographically representative sample “of overall membership sentiment.” You say in your message that this was the objective of the poll.

But if that’s the case, why didn’t you simply hire an independent public opinion firm to conduct an unbiased survey in the way such polls are normally conducted: by telephoning a randomly selected sample of the population whose views you want to survey? That is a far more reliable method of obtaining a representative sample than the process you describe. It’s also what the guild has done in the past when it has sought to poll members’ views on an issue. And it has the advantage of not requiring personal identification of the members being polled.

So, one last question: Why did you choose not to conduct this survey in the normal manner of surveys designed to achieve what you say was the intent of this poll: to obtain a representative sampling of overall membership sentiment?

I’m eager to hear your answers to the questions above.

Sincerely,

Ned

Posted in SAG Politics | Print | No Comments »

September 5, 2008 by admin.

Unite for Strength’s leaders tell us they have just sent the following message to SAG National President Alan Rosenberg and SAG National Executive Director Doug Allen.

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Dear Alan and Doug:

Over the last couple of days, we’ve heard disturbing rumors that the response cards included in the Contract 2008 Special Bulletin were coded to allow identification of each member and how they voted, by name. In our conversations with Michelle Bennett and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, neither denied the accuracy of these rumors.

As you know, secret balloting is a bedrock principle of union democracy. When members are polled in either a binding or advisory manner, they expect their responses to be protected by anonymity. Coding their responses in a way that can identify how each member voted is highly unorthodox. 

It’s especially troubling in this case, given the nature of the “contract update”. In fact, the mailer provides little in the way of an update, as there has been no progress since the AMPTP made their final offer on June 30th.

That raises questions about why this mailer – which presents the work of the leadership in very positive terms – was sent during an election in which members of the leadership are running. We believe SAG members deserve to know why this mailing was timed in the middle of the board election and why their votes on the response card are identifiable by name. Specifically, members should be given answers to these questions:

1. Who made the decision that members’ responses would be identifiable by name? Who approved that decision?

2. Why were the response cards coded that way? (If the intent was to “ensure that only active members in good standing participate” or to prevent fraudulent responses, this could have been accomplished without including personal identifiers.)

3. How will information about individual members’ votes be utilized?

4. Why weren’t members plainly told that the response cards were coded in a way that allows the Guild to know how they voted, by name?

5. Why was the mailer, which clearly casts the current leadership in a positive light, sent during the board election? Even if electioneering was not the intent of the mailer, the risk that it will unduly influence votes is nonetheless real. What prevented the mailer from being sent before or after the election?

We look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Ned Vaughn, Kate Walsh, and Adam Arkin

Posted in SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 4 Comments »

September 5, 2008 by WW.

Firing back after the RBD offered their own ideas on what to do with the Push Poll Postcards, NED Doug Allen sent this out a short while ago to the National Board.
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Subject: FW: Message from Doug Allen, SAG National Executive Director

Dear National Board Members and National Board Alternates:

Some Board members have asked about the response card that accompanied the recent negotiations newsletter.

The poll using the response card is not a ballot election or a ratification or referendum vote.  It is intended to be a sampling of member views on the AMPTP proposal in the TV/Theatrical contract negotiations, a sampling that will help inform me and the Negotiating Committee.  The response cards are received by Integrity Voting Systems and are scanned to determine that they are authentic.  Then Integrity Voting Systems will tabulate the results of the poll.

The sample response card reviewed by the National Board at the meeting on August 21, 2008 contained a reference to a “unique bar code” to prevent fraudulent reproduction of the poll response card, so the Board was aware of this component of the poll at the time of its review.  (The actual language on the card distributed at that meeting was as follows, “This postcard includes a unique bar code to ensure that only active members in good standing participate in this poll.”)  [See attached]

The bar code on the card is unique to the individual member to whom the newsletter was sent.  This was done for two reasons.  One reason, as mentioned, was to make sure only one card would be returned and counted per individual member, preventing anyone from skewing the results of the poll by reproducing the cards in large numbers and returning them filled in. 

Another reason for the unique bar code was to permit demographic analysis of the response to determine how representative the response is.  If the response is statistically similar, for example, to the distribution of membership by branch/division, it is more reliable as an expression of overall
membership sentiment.  We will also be able to analyze the results by earnings under the contract.

This information will be shared with the Negotiating Committee.  All demographic analysis will be done in the aggregate.  Any reports generated will not contain any information by name or by which option an individual member chose on the response card or even by which individuals sent a card back.

I have instructed Michelle Bennett to make sure that the name of any responding member is to be kept confidential and is not to be used for any purpose.  My instructions to that effect will not be changed without further authority from the National Board.

Being able to tie each response card to an individual member was necessary for the reasons stated above.  Neither I nor the Negotiating Committee, however, has any reason to know whether a particular member responded or which of the two options he or she chose.  That information will not be disclosed.

We promised the membership that if they responded, their identities would be kept confidential and we will keep that commitment.  To make that promise clear, I added the following language to the postcard before printing, “The confidentiality of your response will be maintained.”  If you have not already done so, I encourage you to read the newsletter carefully and to fill out and send in the response card.  Please encourage your fellow members to do the same.

In solidarity,

Doug Allen
National Executive Director

cc:  Negotiating Committee

Here’s the Attachment:

MOTION

That the National Board approve the recommendation of the national TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee to include in the upcoming negotiations update newsletter a poll of the membership, as a postage-paid reply card, substantially in the following form:
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SCREEN ACTORS GUILD MEMBER POLL
Please read the information in the attached newsletter carefully. This newsletter explains why we haven’t reached agreement with the AMPTP on the new TV/Theatrical contract.

Now we need to hear from you. Please let us know how you feel by indicating which of the following options you prefer (check ONLY ONE box below):

□ Continue negotiating with the AMPTP to secure a fair TV/Theatrical contract for actors with better terms than the AMPTP’s June 30th “final offer.”

□ Accept the AMPTP’s June 30th “final offer” without modification.

This is not a binding ratification vote, but the results of this poll will be valuable information for the negotiating committee and National Board to use to evaluate how members feel about the negotiations.

Please choose one option and send in your response now! Postcards must be received at the P.O. Box only no later than _______ on ____________ to be counted.

This postcard includes a unique barcode to ensure that only active members in good standing participate in this poll.

—

For those of you using Firefox and trying to comment on this posting - we’ve fixed the glitch that prevented you from posting directly. The box around the ”attachment” section did something wierd to the code, so we made it go away. Our apologies for the inconvenience!

Admin.

Posted in SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 18 Comments »

September 5, 2008 by Editor.

Two days after we revealed that the Push Poll Postcard is designed to allow the Allens to know exactly which way individual members voted on the TV-Theatrical stalemate, the story originally sent to us by VoiceGuy has exploded, with the RBD leadership suggesting a way to respond, the trades taking a look, and Membership First defending the not at all secret vote.

The RBD Leadership e-mail:

INFORMATION REGARDING SAG RESPONSE CARD
 
Dear RBD Member,
 
For information regarding the SAG Response Card contained in the recently received SAG Bulletin entitled “2008 TV/Theatrical Negotiations Update.” Contrary to past practice, the post card response you are asked to return to the Guild is coded to your specific name. It memorializes in official Guild records how YOU, the individual member, voted! That information remains in Guild records and is available to be visited.

Your Regional Branch Division (RBD) Executive Committee wanted you to know the information above and the fact that neither your RBD National Board Representatives nor the National Board itself was made aware of the changed voting procedures.
The purpose of this notice is to make you aware regarding the “bar code” contained on the response card and how it is tied to your name. The intent of this e-mail is not to advise you how or whether to return the “Response Card.”

Steve Fried
David Hartley Margolin
Nancy Duerr
Abby Dylan
Mike Pniewski
Todd Hissong –

Anne-Marie Johnson, the Membership First director and spokesperson, predictably is defending the not-at-all-secret vote. She’s quoted in Blog Stage as calling the information about who voted for and against “useless.”

“This is nothing new. Obviously, this is not what we do during elections, but when we do polling, email polling, phone polling, this is exactly what we’ve done where we know who the member is and what division they live in and/or work from. This is how we get a geographical breakdown and earnings breakdown. We’ve done this a million times; it’s nothing new….

“I don’t know what the controversy is…. Any member’s name is of no use to any board member or senior staff. When we’ve done this in the past, the senior staff have known the names, and it’s never been disclosed, it’s never been used. It’s useless information after the statistical information is gathered.”

Another Membership First Director, Steven Barr, known for sarcastic verbal attacks on opponents of the group, defends the technique by saying it would have been more expensive to conduct a secret ballot. That’s an interesting position to take, considering that the union has already spent hundreds of thousands on similar stunts ranging from rallies with staff posing as members to the unsuccessful effort to defeat AFTRA’s Exhibit A.

Jonathan Handel takes a different view, calling the by-name tracking “a legitimate concern” and asking if SAG can keep a secret. (Answer, apparently not…) He also criticizes the Allens’ blatant efforts to influence members to vote to support the union’s current tactics, rather than to truly seek the opinion of the membership.

Steve Diamond notes the irony of Membership First defending the push poll trojan, writing on Vallywood, “Pretty funny decision considering that Membership “First” got elected promising to curb the power of union staff!”

Our thanks to VoiceGuy for the original tip and research that exposed the by name tracking, and to the other readers who sent us information on this and other stories. That’s how we’re building this site and keeping it real - with your contributions.

Posted in SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 9 Comments »