Article: SAG caves in to studios

April 24, 2009 by Lance Carter

Here’s an excellent article about the current state of SAG, the infighting with Membership First and Unite For Strength and where we currently stand.

The title of the article? New Screen Actors Guild leadership caves in to studios

Brilliant!

From wsws.org:

The past ten months have been characterized by bitter factionalism within the guild’s leadership and the failure of any group to offer a way to resist the attacks of the media conglomerates. The newly-formed right-wing majority on the SAG national board, from Unite for Strength, representing the most privileged sections of performers with close ties to management, has made clear its intention to facilitate the efforts of the studios to impose rollbacks on the actors.

The Membership First faction, led by SAG president Alan Rosenberg, rightfully denounces the tentative agreement as a sell-out, but over the course of the past year has been unable to advance any coherent strategy for mobilizing actors and other sections of the entertainment industry workforce against the giant corporations. Its hesitations and impotence—along with its ultimate discrediting—result from the fact that the Rosenberg faction accepts the stranglehold of the conglomerates over film and television, but hopes that union militancy—or, more accurately, threats of union militancy—might wring somewhat better conditions out of the studios.