Richard Schiff: SAG – Just Say No

June 7, 2009 by Lance Carter

I am far away from the fray. In London working for beans on toast and about to take another film here. As I contemplate the upcoming SAG contract vote I can’t help but see the irony that this next film’s subject is the 1968 women’s strike for equal pay at the Dagenham Ford Motor plant. This movement began as just a job grade increase request whereby the women wanted to be deemed as skilled workers so they would get the relative pay increase accompanying such a classification. It snowballed into the first job action and strike for women’s equal pay and led to a fundamental shift in the way women were treated in the work place world-wide.

England at the time was an economic disaster waiting to happen. Millions of workers went on strike every year trying to pound out a living wage and the environment was growing increasingly anti labor. So why was this women’s strike effective? Because no one could deny the fundamental fairness of the women’s position. Even as Ford shut down all production so as to incite the men to corral their female counterparts, the movement garnered its strength from the undeniable reality that they were on the right side of morality. That’s not to say that the gains were easily won; that unity was a foregone conclusion; that fellow union rank and filers weren’t antagonistic and combative; that fear of lost jobs and broken intra-union marriages weren’t colossal obstacles. These women united in force through and despite the army of opposition and the clamors for common sense and reasonable capitulation for the sake of the plant, the industry and the country.

SAG members are hearing these same arguments as we contemplate this new albeit regressive contract. “The industry can’t afford another strike.” “The fall off for all other unions and support industries would be devastating to the local economy.” And most significantly: “This is no time to strike; we all can’t afford it.”

What was the devastating effect on the Ford Dagenham plant strike? The plant is still there 40 years later and has thrived as one of Ford’s most successful operations overseas or anywhere. Ford has been able to hold a solid share of the European market as a result and continues to be the most innovative of the American car companies recently creating a 70MPG diesel engine for the European Ford Fiesta (developed at Dagenham.) It is the only major American car company not beholden to tax payers for their survival and is the strongest amongst them looking forward. The Dagenham plant is the only industrial plant left in London proper. What a disaster!

There isn’t a producer in Hollywood or an actor in SAG supportive of this contract who can look you in the eye and keep a straight face while telling you this contract is fair and right. It isn’t. But it’s up to SAG members to go on the website and read for themselves and judge accordingly. I dare you to do that and then conclude that it is fair to give away our future in new media; to compromise our marketability with product placement enforcement; to let our hard work go wasted with erosion of residuals for past work; and on and on.

SAG members supportive of the contract accuse their opponents of wanting a strike. That is similar to the tactic of the so-called pro-lifers who have named their opponents “pro abortion.” There is no such thing as pro abortion. No one wants an abortion to ever have to happen — it is a last resort that some believe should be the sole right of the woman to decide. There is no such thing as a pro striker. No one wants to have anyone suffer through the sacrifices and stress of a strike for themselves or all the collateral damage caused by it. But it is basic negotiation 101 that a union cannot negotiate with confidence without a unified rank and file. Schisms and splits have cursed our union for too long. The supporters of this contract have been undermining unity, from what I noticed personally at meetings, starting six months prior to the beginning of the negotiation process. Union members will remember an email campaign and subsequent meetings that called for disenfranchising thousands of SAG members because they didn’t meet what was basically an arbitrary standard for “being a real actor.” I went to one of these meetings and asked what the standard should be. Their reply would have relegated me without a vote for half of my career. Mind you, I see the validity in their argument on principle and I think “staked members” as they called them may be at an unfair disadvantage when votes are counted because issues are different for the various tiers (for lack of a better word) of membership. So let’s address that sometime down the road. But engaging in a viral campaign that splits the union right before the onset of negotiations for the most important contract of our time? Really? No wonder Nick Counter and the producers were so easy and smug in their dismissals of reasonable demands. All they had to do was read the emails to know that the union was hopelessly paralyzed and split.

Ford Dagenham’s auto workers were also violently split yet the right path emerged from the infighting and a unified front resulted in victory.

So the argument comes down to: “Is this really the right time?” “Can the industry survive?” It is only at times of economic stress that union action can be effective. In our country the economically depressed 1930′s proved to be the most fruitful for the emergence of unions and a subsequent growth of the middle class. The entertainment industry has been bought out and taken over by goliath corporations. Oddly, these entertainment subsidiaries are likely to be the only aspect of these giants to be in profit at this time. Corporations can’t afford another shut down — even two years ago I don’t think that was true since all other parts of the giant were more healthy and profitable and a shutdown in Hollywood had no great effect on their bigger bottom line. Not so anymore!

Now, at last and at least, the playing field is even. Both sides cannot afford a strike. So it comes down to who is more courageous and who is willing to fight for a right cause. If this were a western, we’d win the gunfight. If this was an intelligent western — the bad guy would walk away knowing he can’t possibly draw first.

And who knows, perhaps in the aftermath the industry will stop destroying itself and maybe 40 years hence we will be as lucky as the Ford Motor Company in Dagenham, England.