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From Today's New York Times… a Scab Speaks!

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – A Strike No One Can Win By LESLIE SAINT BORNSTEIN I am a scab, a nonunion actor who crossed the Screen Actors Guild picket line to audition for and act in a commercial. This may be the first issue on which Susan Sarandon and I disagree. At stake is how to pay actors for their work in TV commercials. Advertisers want to pay a flat fee for all ads on network TV, as they do for cable. S.A.G. wants advertisers to continue paying actors each time a commercial is shown on network TV, and to adopt that policy for cable and the Internet, too. On May 1 S.A.G. called a strike, prohibiting its members from performing in commercials. I never wanted to be a scab; I wanted to be in the union. But S.A.G. has a Catch-22 : you can’t get into the union unless you have a union job, and you can’t get a union job unless you’re in the union (unless you know somebody with enough pull or you are exactly what they’re looking for). The union dictates that I can’t even be considered for a commercial until all S.A.G. actors of my type have been seen. And since I am a middle-aged woman, odds are low that I will even be seen by a casting director. But right now I can get into S.A.G. by putting in 80 hours manning the picket lines and harassing non-S.A.G. actors as they go on auditions (there was such an overwhelming response to this offer that the union stopped putting names on the waiting list). I can also join if I alert the union when I book a commercial so they can set up a picket line. By refusing to cross, I will get my card immediately. These conditions may not come under the rubric of illegal labor practices, but they seem pretty unfair to me. The strike’s most vocal supporters seem to be the least affected. Instead of wearing yellow ribbons to the Emmys, why didn’t Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston just not show up? After all, the show is supported by advertisers. Or Richard Dreyfuss could say he will never make another movie with a product placement. Other unions aren’t actively supporting this strike, because S.A.G. doesn’t support them. Shortly after the strike began, all 35 S.A.G. film actors on the New York set of "Perfume" crossed a picket line of stage employees protesting a nonunion crew. If S.A.G. has no qualms about working with a nonunion crew, why should the crew care whether it works with non- S.A.G. actors? At 6:45 on a recent drizzly morning I was greeted by four protesters as I approached the van that was to take me to location. They harangued me and took my photograph. When the strike was over, they warned, I would be forever barred from joining the union. This sounds like a Hollywood blacklist to me, but maybe I’m letting my imagination run away with me. Leslie Saint Bornstein is an actress living in Manhattan.

– ca ne fait rien pas Before you buy.

Response:

publication. Carl — If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be  vague. Before you buy.

Response:

EVERYONE needs to read this. Please. The major advertisers of this country — the United States of America — are literally trying to DESTROY the actors’ unions. They are trying to destroy the ability of American middle-class actors to make a living. There are hundreds of thousands of actors and their families who have been on strike for almost six months now; and the advertisers, headed primarily by McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, General Motors and AT&T, could care less about the PEOPLE in these families. The advertisers are telling actors that they will not pay pension and health benefits to them for commercials made for the Internet — which is the major FUTURE of advertising. The advertisers refuse to address issues of monitoring commercial use, while they continue to steal from actors and their families by "forgetting" to pay actors for commercials that are running. They have been paying actors only $11 per day for unlimited use of actors’ commercials on cable television — a figure that the actors agreed to for years to help give cable TV "time to grow." Well, the cable baby is a BIG kid now…and advertisers refuse to give actors any meaningful increase to that measly $11 per day use. THESE are the issues. My wife and I, both actors, are now going into our savings. We are scared. And angry. In the next few weeks, and perhaps months, you will be asked to HELP American union actors survive. You can do this by participating in boycotts that will be called for by major stars who will be helping their middle- and lower-class fellow union members. One of the first boycotts may be against Procter & Gamble…please stay tuned to help when the call goes out — and please help by participating in the Procter & Gamble boycott. (Remember — McDonald’s, General Motors, and AT&T are some of the main companies behind this as well…so avoiding purchasing their products would help as well.) Go to this website if you’d like to help — www.idotvads.com(http://www.idotvads.com) IDOTVADS.COM is such a wealth of information,

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