Outroar Over SAG "Qualified Voting"

In a Talk Back in our April 24 issue, Erik-Anders Nilsson criticized a petition calling for "qualified voting" in the Screen Actors Guild, which would require that members meet certain benchmarks in order to vote on a contract. The petition was started by Ned Vaughn and has been signed by some 1,500 SAG members, some of them high-profile actors such as Sally Field and Meryl Streep. The following letters are in response to Nilsson's column and the petition.

Thank you, Erik-Anders Nilsson, for your column. I am shocked that members of a union that I am honored to belong to have decided that my vote is not worthy enough to cast to decide my own future. Nine years ago, when I moved to Los Angeles from Detroit, I made it a priority to get my SAG card. I saved up the initiation fee and followed every trail that could put my foot in the door to do the work that would make me eligible. All of that paid off when, nine months later, I was eligible. I wrote a check for $1,275 and didn't look back.

Now the initiation fee is double that, I'm not eligible for health insurance because I don't make enough, and nine years later I'm still trying to juggle daily living and survival with getting my foot in the door with agents and casting directors. I have not only given back to my union in many ways -- such as volunteering, supporting educational programs, and voting regularly in every election -- but I pay my dues regularly, on time, every six months. So if the union decides that my vote doesn't count, then by all means it can send me the $1,275 (with interest) and refund my dues.

-- Maria Menozzi
Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Ned Vaughn is fortunate enough to be working regularly in this business that we love so well. However, he insults a great majority of us who take the craft of acting seriously when he feels he can be elitist and say that those who make less than a certain amount of money should be kept from voting.

Two years ago I made a great deal of money from my acting, and then the following year I made only about $2,000. Should I be allowed to vote more for the year when I made a lot of money, using Mr. Vaughn's idea of money equals voting privileges?

-- Kevin G. Shinnick
New York

What a cruel and sad irony that prominent members of an American union -- which has long championed the need for free speech for a free society, so that members can fully and fairly engage in the entire spectrum of the political process -- would now seek to zipper the overwhelming majority of the membership.

There is absolutely no viable, justifiable, and/or rational excuse for this proposal other than a bare-faced effort to serve the interests of the few at the expen$e of the lawful rights of the many.

Why are we even having this conversation? The qualified voting petition is patently unqualified.

-- Frances Scanlon
New York

Comments

[lisa lynn]

I am all for qualified voting in SAG, Alan Rosenberg! Great interview on KCRW today in Los Angeles--shows what a blow hard you are. What about the thousands of crew people who work in the tv/film/commercial business as their primary, every day job? The low level actors who pay their dues but can't get jobs who work as waiters, bartenders, secretaries etc....guess what? You chose to be an actor and it's really, really hard to make a living at it but you think you can disrupt my livelihood? I agree with qualified voting in SAG because most people who are members don't qualify and therefore should not be making decisions which affect so many people outside of SAG. In case you haven't read the news our country is in a recession and gas prices, food prices etc. are rising faster than I can type this. Think about other people besides yourselves and think about how little you got for 6 months of striking in 2000 for the commercial SAG contract and how many people you hurt not to mention how you shot yourselves in the foot when production figured out how to film stuff overseas...It took me, personally, over 4 years to recover financially from that strike. And the WGA got hardly anything but put a lot of people out of work for over 3 months during the holidays recently. How about if all of IATSE went on strike--good luck finding crew... Think outside your little boxes and see the bigger picture!