September 17, 2008 by Editor.

We’re chatting, e-mailing and analyzing, trying to find anything worth extracting from the results of the bungled push poll trojan. Our quick conclusion?

It doesn’t show us a thing. And, though the usual suspects are out crowing over the percentage totals, we think that AFTRA may have it right on this one. If you don’t tell the world how many votes there were, when it’s an embarassingly low total, you might just look stronger.

In this case, given the Allens bungling the poll by sending out double ballots to some possibly selected voters or groups, the AMPTP probably would be dismissing the whole thing anyway. But it might be a slight advantage, rather than an open joke. 8288 votes for? That’s weak.

Still, the results could provide some useful information if we had the access that they have at 5757 - the access to exactly who voted and how. Even though the sub 10% return on the push poll provides a skewed and small sample, that information could serve as a predictor of the way the membership voted for the National and Branch board seats, in the election for which the results are now less than 48 hours away.

But we don’t have that access…so we’ll have to wait, and wonder whether the low voter turnout means that the back channel “don’t vote” campaign mattered, or whether there were a lot of cards returned with written comments… In a response to a reader’s comment, one of us wrote that, “The question is will the new board send out a strike authorization. Our consensus is that it depends upon the results of the election as to whether the authorization gets sent out, no matter how hard Doug Allen pushes for it.

But if it does get sent out, we don’t think it will pass, even if they bar code and stamp each member’s name and home address on the ballots, and promise to publish the home phone numbers of anyone who votes against.”

The one thing we’re sure of tonight - if anyone reads this as an overwhelming vote of confidence in the tactics of the Allens, they’re off the deep end.

Posted in SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical, SAG-AFTRA | Print | 19 Comments »

September 17, 2008 by WW.

With the widely anticipated word that the bungled postcard push poll trojan provided the results one would have expected, the AMPTP beat the Allens to the punch, posting their predictable and over the top response to the predictable results even before the SAG site had the official numbers.

We’ve updated with the numbers and with reaction from the trades, but here’s the AMPTP response.

“The mass postcard mailing by SAG negotiators was a farce. The questions were devised to give SAG negotiators only the answer they wanted to hear. The materials accompanying the postcard were hopelessly one-sided. SAG member votes were recorded by name, exposing those who opposed SAG negotiators to possible retribution. And some SAG members reportedly received multiple ballots. In short, this mass postcard mailing was another exercise in futility by SAG’s negotiators, and the results are meaningless. We have made a fair offer, with significant gains in salary and new media. That offer remains on the table, for the time being, despite steadily deteriorating economic conditions. In the meantime, we and all of the other industry guilds have gone back to work, and SAG members continue to miss out on the benefits of a new contract.”  

There’s been no response from the Allens to the flap over mailing of multiple postcard/ballots to some members, and no indication as to whether those multiple ballots were concentrated in Hollywood, the one area in which the Allens have a working majority, at least until ballots are counted this week in the SAG board elections.On its face, the postcard sought to push members to vote to reject the AMPTP’s “last, best and final”offer, and to support the Membership First dominated negotiating committee in its continued effort to negotiate better terms for the TV-Theatrical contract.

—

Update: SAG has now officially posted the results.

10,298 votes were cast from the more than 103-thousand members to whom postcards were mailed, a response rate of about 10%.

The SAG statement had no accounting or discussion of any kind about the duplicate mailings. Of those postcards returned 87%, or about 8288, voted the way the Allens wanted. Interestingly, that’s about the number of votes the leading Membership First candidates received in the last SAG elections.

The official statement says the returns roughly matched the geographical distribution of SAG’s membership, with 56% coming from Hollywood, just under 21% from New York and the remainder from the branches.

Meanwhile, the results are being spun by Membership First supporters as indicating it would be possible for the union to get the 75% margin necessary to obtain a strike authorization, something most industry observers consider highly unlikely.

–

2nd Update - Reactions:

Lauren Horwitch has it just about right in our view. On BlogStage she writes, “It seems a lot of SAG members didn’t vote for fear Doug Allen would use the bar code to hunt them down and plant severed horse heads in their futons. (“Middle-class” actors who can’t afford iPhones or plasma TVs don’t sleep on feather mattresses, of course). Less than 10 percent of the 103,630 paid-up SAG members who received the mailer and polling card voted at all. That’s low even by SAG standards—25 percent usually vote in elections and referendums”

Dave McNary in Variety plays it straight: “In a sign that the SAG stalemate with majors will persist, an overwhelming number of SAG members who responded to the guild’s survey about its negotiations with the majors have endorsed the current strategy of holding out for a better deal.”

Shortly after we wrote that the Hollywood Reporter pretty much ignored the whole thing, their reporter, Leslie Simmons (whose work we like a lot) e-mailed and said, hey, it’s on the front page. And she had the first reaction from Alan Rosenberg, a quote, saying “This membership poll provides clear insight and direction concerning how actors feel about their futures. Clearly they expect Screen Actors Guild to protect them from exploitation in new media, and to preserve longstanding principles and contract provisions.”

OK, Leslie, but they could have given you some more space. (And sorry about the “he!”)

The typically out to lunch Nikki Finke spins it in a way even Membership First wouldn’t dare: “The balance of power vis-a-vis Hollywood employer-labor relations shifted sizeably today. And suddenly SAG finds itself with tremendous contract leverage and Big Media not so much…Not even the results of tomorrow’s election to SAG’s national board can now change the direction of the negotiations much if at all: they’re irrelevant. Because the big actors guild membership is more unified over getting a better contract than anyone thought. ”

Huh? What *is* that girl smoking?

Posted in SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 38 Comments »

September 17, 2008 by admin.

JOINT NEWS RELEASE 

Posted in SAG-AFTRA | Print | 17 Comments »

September 17, 2008 by Editor.

We almost always find Jonathan Handel’s analysis of union issues worth a read, even when we disagree with him (which is a fair amount of the time.)

He’s out with a new analysis that correctly notes the toxic atmosphere of SAG politics, and points out that every move by the Allens and Membership First in the recent past has ended up backfiring, making SAG weaker and AFTRA stronger. While we don’t view SAG/AFTRA as a zero sum game, with board elections closing momentarily it’s an interesting observation. And we certainly agree with his comment that in recent months SAG “has been flying apart at the seams like a rag doll spun through the air by a petulant 2-year-old.”

What Handel doesn’t point out is that there have been a couple of recent SAG/AFTRA meetings that have been businesslike, if not anywhere near friendly. Cooperation seems reasonably likely during the Commercials Contract negotiations, and may still be possible in Interactive.

Even if the Allens are not at all subtly threatening to withdraw from the AFL-CIO and, presumably, the 4As, AFTRA, which made a big point of pulling out of the 4As, hasn’t done it yet. Everyone seems to be waiting to see if the results of the elections make a difference.

Posted in Interactive, Commercials Contract, SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical, SAG-AFTRA | Print | 1 Comment »