SAG-AFTRA Gives Us 4 Reasons To Vote ‘Yes’ On The Merger

If you haven’t seen it, the new Sag-Aftra website is up and running at sagaftra.org.

I grabbed a couple of things off the site and posted them here. One is a video stating how the pros of the merger and another is a document with the 4 reasons why we should vote yes for the merger.

I’m for the merger but one thing I’m really concerned about is the fact that we will have TV and Radio Broadcasters voting on matters that concern us specifically. In all of the documents, I haven’t seen a single thing written about that. Does that worry you too?

Below is the video and ‘4 Reasons’ flyer. 

Click here to view the pdf version.

Your SAG and AFTRA national boards have overwhelmingly endorsed a merger plan that was carefully created by your elected leadership. Here are four reasons why you should vote yes when your ballot arrives in the mail:

1 BARGAINING STRENGTH

• SAG and AFTRA members of all categories largely work for the same multinational corporations that control the entertainment and media industries.

• Employers divide our work in several areas, making it impossible for the unions to bargain from a position of maximum strength. That leaves us vulnerable to harmful competitive negotiations.

• Merging AFTRA and SAG ensures that we cannot be divided, and that our employers have just one place to get the skilled union talent they need.

2 Organizing

• Non-union work is a growing threat in both large and small markets, especially in the areas of commercials, industrials, interactive games, new media, cable news, and local and national radio and television broadcasting.

• Forming one union and pooling our resources puts us in the best position to organize new work.

• Working together with a unified strategy, we can fight more effectively to bring non-union work under our contracts. That means more jobs for SAG-AFTRA members.

3 Benefits

• Thousands of members are missing out on health and pension/retirement benefits because their earnings are split between the SAG and AFTRA plans. Merger removes a major hurdle to solving this problem.

• Bargaining strength determines how much employers must pay to fund our benefit plans. Merger will give us more power in negotiations, increasing our ability to maintain and improve benefits.

• Better organizing will put more work under union contracts, increasing total employer contributions to our plans.

4 THE FUTURE

• Our work is being created and consumed in ways that weren’t imagined when AFTRA and SAG were founded in the 1930s.

• Merging now will allow us to build an organization that can respond powerfully to  industry changes and take the lead in shaping our future.

• As our work continues to change, a unified strategy and maximum bargaining leverage are essential to make sure we receive our fair share of industry profits.