Is My Union Obsolete?
By: Brent Thiessen
Tags: Entertainment Industry, Theatre, Streaming, Unions, Politics

A story of power, politics, and greed

Photo by Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash

On October 7th I arrived at the grocery store with my wife when I received an email from SAG-AFTRA, one of four unions I belong to. The email was from union president, Gabrielle Carteris, and executive director, David White, so I opened it in the store. They were writing to inform me about an arising issue with Actors’ Equity Association, another union I belong to. The two unions had been attempting to negotiate an agreement over the broadcast of productions being filmed in theatres during the pandemic, but they had reached an impasse over jurisdiction. SAG-AFTRA believes they have historically covered all recorded media that is broadcast to an audience. Actors’ Equity agrees with that statement, except when it pertains to employers with who they already bargain. They believe that employers are the jurisdiction, not the work being done. I wasn’t surprised by an email regarding a public dispute with Actors’ Equity. Since Covid-19 began, there have been multiple public arguments involving the union, most notably with Disney.

But I understood a cause for the argument they were having. Both unions were hit hard by Covid-19. Broadway, the financial backbone of Actors’ Equity, will be shut down for much of 2021. The arts and culture sector, which contributes $877 billion annually to US GDP and outperforms most American industries including transportation, agriculture, construction, and tourism, will be one of the last to reopen and recover in a post-pandemic America. Without working members, unions are reliant on basic dues and income sources like property and financial investments. Together, these account for less than half of a union’s normal revenue stream. Both SAG-AFTRA and AEA, like many businesses and households around the world, have had to cut costs to survive. Even though work has slowly started to pick up as we develop safer working protocols, the market contraction has been incredible. Existing assets will only be able to finance so many months or years running at a loss and will not sustain multimillion-dollar organizations like these for the long term without major adjustments. For everyone, the path to remain solvent is a tightrope walk.

What struck me about this email was the final paragraph. It said that there was a “great deal of misinformation beginning to circulate over the issue.” This reads: someone is lying. As a member of both unions, I knew I would be receiving both sides of the story. As someone living in America in 2020, I know what it’s like to have to sort through misinformation and how frustrating and time consuming it can be to find the truth. I thought who has time for this? Turns out, I do.

The events unfolded rather quickly, and it kept me interested. 17 minutes later, I had an email from Mary McColl, executive director of Actors’ Equity. She wrote about the work the union had done to organize streaming contracts since the pandemic began. But employers were breaking off negotiations with Actors’ Equity to deal instead with SAG-AFTRA. She wrote that SAG-AFTRA’s contracts did not meet AEA’s safety and wage guidelines and that I would be paid as little as $125/day. Mary had provided some figures in her email when talking about the contracts Equity was providing. She said members had earned $2.5 million over 3,400 weeks. I did the math. It equals an average of $735/ week. Typically, when working on a play or musical you work 6 days per week. So, I divided $735 by 6 and came up with $122.50/day. Things weren’t adding up. If $125/day was as little as I’d get paid on a SAG-AFTRA contract, how was $122.50/day on the average Equity contract better? (*Note: Actors’ Equity just revised their figures from October 7th — they now claim members have earned $2.48 million over 3,720 work weeks, which equals an average salary of $111/day).

What followed was a series of social media posts from Actors’ Equity and its president, Kate Shindle, that added more fuel to the fire. I clicked on an Actors’ Equity discussion group I’m part of with other members. I started reading some of the conversations and saw that elected leaders were participating. They had a lot of opinions about the SAG-AFTRA new media contract that theatres were using to film and stream their productions. Then, Kate Shindle posted her version of the events surrounding the dispute. As I began to read it, I felt like I wasn’t getting the whole story. I’ve learned that you don’t get what you don’t ask for, so I started asking questions, searching for the facts. I have also learned to keep the receipts. So, I did.

In acting, they teach you that the moment before everything begins is integral to good storytelling. I’m glad I found it because this story has one that wasn’t included. You can read a more thorough SAG-AFTRA — AEA dispute timeline here. As I searched for truth, I was surprised to find a web of lies and purposeful steps on the part of Actors’ Equity and its media committee to expand its reach into SAG-AFTRA’s jurisdiction and shut them out of negotiations with theatres.

In SAG-AFTRA’s email, they attached their most recent draft agreement, which gives Equity the power to negotiate terms for the recording and broadcast of theatre productions during the pandemic period. But, elected leaders of Actors’ Equity were claiming that this agreement was a bad deal and warning members about the SAG-AFTRA contracts that some theatres had chosen to use. But, after looking into their claims, they are largely false and misleading, mostly propaganda. You can read more about their specific claims here, and how they are not the whole truth or not the truth at all.

What was interesting was that none of these councilors had any source material to provide, no resources that could substantiate their claims. SAG-AFTRA, too, has said their requests for documents over the past several months have gone unanswered. Actors’ Equity did provide this to its national council and convention delegates, “proof” that they hold jurisdiction over all their employers through recognition clauses. But in a search of the collective bargaining agreement library available to the membership, the agreement they referenced was nowhere to be found. Here are the recognition clauses that do exist and can be read. They make it clear that Actors’ Equity has no case against employers “abandoning their recognition clauses,” because there is nothing in the scope of their contracts regarding the creation and filming of theatre specifically for broadcasting. This is completely new territory for Actors’ Equity. So, there is nothing to recognize them for. But perhaps they already know that. Otherwise, they would’ve already gone to arbitration.

In their fight for jurisdiction over SAG-AFTRA, they have a difficult path to legal victory. The Supreme Court created a balancing test in 1962 to determine jurisdiction in cases like these. One of the main factors? Who is the employer’s choice and preference? According to Actors’ Equity, theatres are choosing SAG-AFTRA, with claims from Kate Shindle that an employer group is threatening legal action to keep them away. To be clear, no one is forcing an independent employer or an employer group to bargain with either union. They are making free will decisions. For now. But if Actors’ Equity can get an agreement from SAG-AFTRA, then they can get theatres back into their negotiating room. Without it, Actors’ Equity is staring down irrelevance and bankruptcy. Mary McColl wants her job and Kate Shindle wants her free lunch.

Why all the lies? Kate Shindle and Mary McColl know Actors’ Equity doesn’t have a very strong argument as to why they hold jurisdiction over recorded media/ employers. Employers are choosing SAG-AFTRA. An initiative to sway public opinion is one of few options left.

On September 4th, the same day that Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA met for the second time to negotiate an agreement, Erin Koster, a national councilor and member of Fair Wage On Stage, which is a political arm within AEA’s national council, created an online petition in Google Docs and began to circulate it. It was called “Tell SAG-AFTRA to Stop Undercutting Equity Actors and Stage Managers.” The first six signatures belonged to her and fellow Fair Wage On Stage members Sid Solomon, Katherine Nelson, Nikka Graff Lanzarone, Kellie Overbey, and Wally Dunn, all elected officials of the union. Erin’s message on the petition: “share quietly. This letter is being kept private for now.” After they had more names, Erin moved all of the politicians’ signatures from the top of the petition and mixed them amongst the others. One month later, on October 7th, their petition became the official Actors’ Equity petition to stop SAG-AFTRA.

Fair Wage On Stage is behind many of the false and misleading claims surrounding these issues and its members are leading the public misinformation campaign that SAG-AFTRA warned about. The team that is negotiating the agreement is composed of the union principals. The 1st vice president is Melissa Robinette, a Fair Wage On Stage member. Kate Shindle is not an official member of Fair Wage On Stage, but she publicly supports them. Their love letter to Kate Shindle, endorsing her for president, makes it seem like they are the best of friends. James Ludwig, chair of the Actors’ Equity media committee is also a member of Fair Wage On Stage. Fair Wage On Stage is inextricably linked to every part of this operation. But they won’t own it.

Why a dispute? I believe it has to do with a future merger. In Facebook comments, Kate Shindle mentions that a merger had been discussed “several times” with SAG-AFTRA while negotiating this agreement. The AFL-CIO, the labor federation that both Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA belong to, encourages the merger of unions to create stronger organizations. But union mergers take several years and include all sorts of valuations and negotiations. As the pandemic rages on with no clear ending in sight, Actors’ Equity still has bills to pay. Last year it had $29 million in expenses, or $79,450/day, according to government filings. Even with furloughs, the 16 senior staff members that Actors’ Equity lists on their website earned over a cumulative $2.5 million last year. While Mary McColl announced early on in the pandemic that staff had agreed to salary cuts, no information about the union’s current operation or its financial status has been made available to the membership. Mary McColl has not publicly stated what pay cut she has taken. Working dues from all of the streaming work Actors’ Equity says was earned this year would not even finance a single day of union operations in a pre-Covid world, so it’s unclear how they are surviving. For Actors’ Equity to make it through the pandemic, they need serious cutbacks, or they will have to start selling their real estate in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to pay staff. Real estate is of great value to SAG-AFTRA. They rent office space, so Actors’ Equity has something to provide in a merger deal, but only if they can keep the lights on. So, in their struggle to justify staffing, stay relevant, and solvent, they need all of these streaming contracts.

The current agreement being proposed by SAG-AFTRA would still give producers the option of not returning to Actors’ Equity if they wanted to make more than minor edits or use a streaming platform like Netflix or Hulu. They also have bills to pay and are being very protective of elements specific to movie production. Why wouldn’t they be? They don’t trust Actors’ Equity, and really, who could blame them when Actors’ Equity has taken purposeful steps to shut SAG-AFTRA out? So, the fight is real.

Why not be upfront about all of this? Power? From what I’ve learned, I wonder if Kate Shindle and Melissa Robinette are trying to hang on to power long enough so that they retain it in a merged union. To do that, they would need Actors’ Equity to stay solvent. To stay solvent, they need the streaming contracts. To get the streaming contracts, they need employers back. To get employers back, they need a very good agreement from SAG-AFTRA. To do that, they need a public campaign of support. How do you rally support? You find emotional issues that people will get behind. Save our stage managers.

The biggest issue for members of Actors’ Equity is that SAG-AFTRA does not bargain contract terms for stage managers. Kate Shindle tweeted “stage managers are getting fired because SAG-AFTRA doesn’t cover them. The idea that AEA could cover a stage manager while the cast is covered by SAG-AFTRA is absurd.” But it’s not uncommon. Film sets, Broadway shows, music recordings all have different unions representing different employees. Within the Actors’ Equity Association itself, several unions represent different staff members. If Actors’ Equity wanted to negotiate contracts only for stage managers, they very well could. But Kate Shindle is right that it would be absurd. In August, East Lynne Theatre Company in New Jersey announced it would film and stream a new production of Nothing Matters using an AEA contract. The theatre’s artistic director reported that the negotiations with Actors’ Equity took months. With that much time spent on approving a single safety plan, it would not pay Equity staff to do months of work for one stage manager to have a job. That’s a quick road to bankruptcy. But does it have to work that way?

Actors’ Equity has not signaled that they would be willing to sign off on the film industry’s Safe Way Forward Plan, a collaborative effort between SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, Teamsters, and the DGA. Doing so would make contract approval for stage managers quite simple. Other stage unions, the SDC and AGMA, have collaborated on their Return to Stage and Performance Playbook. Actors’ Equity did not release their safety protocols, criticized by some producers as out of touch with film production, in coordination with any other organization. This keeps them in control of whether or not stage managers have jobs and union protections. And as long as Actors’ Equity seeks all the streaming contracts for both actors and stage managers to fund their current operation, stage managers will be kept on the sidelines until this dispute plays out. All of us or none…for now. Because if mergers are being discussed multiple times during the meetings Kate Shindle is involved in, she probably knows that a second merger will need to be negotiated for stage managers. So, stage managers might need to start adjusting to the idea.

And what’s wrong with it? Coming out of the pandemic, artists are going to need to join together and use their collective voice to ensure we can rebuild our industry with our employers and colleagues. Our unions should be stronger than before. Everyone deserves that, stage managers just as much as everyone else. As an actor, I rely on stage managers to help me do my job. I hope they feel they can rely on me, too. But I also rely on directors, choreographers, music directors, designers, musicians, technicians, costumers, crew members, administrators, front of house, agents, casting directors, and teachers. We are all represented by different unions and associations. A union is a group of people who pay other people to do things for them. What do we want those people to do for us? is the question we all need to ask. Because of Covid-19, we have the opportunity to change our world. And I don’t believe we are going to get out of the pandemic until we do. But from what I’ve learned, I am having a very hard time believing that what is valuable to members is of the same value to the staff and leadership of Actors’ Equity. So, let’s look at the union. Is this the organization that can lead us out of the pandemic?

Tackling white supremacy

The Actors’ Equity Association is racist. Full stop. No other comment should be made. On June 18, Actors’ Equity announced a resolution they had passed, acknowledging their historic culpability in perpetuating inequity through white supremacy. They promised to change. Over 4 months later, no changes have been made. Not even an anti-racist training program for members. On July 24, six weeks after SAG-AFTRA released a statement condemning police unions, Actors’ Equity posted their response to their website, quietly, without announcement. At the October eastern regional membership meeting, none of the member resolutions addressing white supremacy or racial justice were taken up for discussion. Only three people are allowed to be the public face of Actors’ Equity, Mary McColl, Kate Shindle, and Brandon Lorenz. They are all white. Actors’ Equity has 16 senior staff members. 15 are white. The Actors’ Equity executive committee has 8 union officers — they are all white — and 9 councilors — 5 are white (7 when this dispute began). This group of 17 makes most of the major decisions about the live theatre industry. And they are overwhelmingly white. It is disturbing. To be clear, it doesn’t need to be this way. But they are choosing this. They just chose this in July. Grade — FAIL

Ensuring safe workplaces

Members have been complaining loudly about harassment in the workplace, and nothing has been done. Brave members publicly detailing episodes of workplace harassment were dismissed and even laughed at by staff. How unsafe do they need to feel before something is done? Grade — FAIL

Negotiating wages

Each year, Actors’ Equity releases an annual report, detailing facts and figures regarding the incomes and working weeks of members. Looking at this salary chart, which breaks down the average weekly salaries of members between the 2011/12 season and the 2018/19 season, the average national weekly salary increased 23.2%, from $1,183 to $1,458. This increase is driven by the Production contract, covering artists on Broadway and on tour. It accounts for 56% of total member earnings, but only 26% of the total work for members. The average salary rose from $2,536 to $3,169 per week over the 8 years. If you remove the Production contract from the equation, the average national weekly salary drops significantly, to $798 in 2011/12, rising to $863 in 2018/19 — an increase of 8.2%. When accounting for inflation, however, the average national weekly salary without the Production contract is 3% lower today than it was in the 2011/12 season. In the western region alone, weekly salaries have dropped 25% when accounting for inflation, from $938 to $783 per week. Meanwhile, salaries for Mary McColl and Steven DiPaola have increased 69% over the same term, or 52% when accounting for inflation. Grade — FAIL

Nurturing employer relationships

Since the start of the pandemic, employers, casting directors, and agents across the industry have raged about Equity’s lack of response in approving the 100+ safety plans it has on its desk at any given time. The guidance provided by an epidemiologist hired by the union to consult on a safe reopening strategy for live theatre was vague and left employers without a clear picture of what Equity would deem safe as they prepared their plans. This lack of guidance delays negotiations and has caused many theatres to cancel planned productions, some without ever hearing an initial response from the union. Some employers have taken the step of altogether abandoning their collective bargaining agreements, and members have resigned as a result. Rather than create ways to support struggling theatres, the union instead created a “Wall Of Shame” in an attempt to strike back, complete with graffiti font, biohazard signs, and catchphrases like “Dinner Theatre of Death” and “Illness Incorporated.” This was a draft design, prematurely published to its public website. When a member informed them of their gaffe, the page was taken down and rebranded “Safety Spotlight.”

When the SAG-AFTRA dispute was first percolating, however, union staff was eager to instead approve hybrid productions, like The Tony Awards, where a show could be presented simultaneously in-person (to a socially distanced audience) and over broadcast (to the remainder of the ticket holders). Now, safety plans which the union had labeled dangerous weren’t an issue. From a producer source who had been denied Equity contracts for a live, socially distanced production after months of negotiations: “The sole driver in AEA asking me to do the hybrid in-person/ live-streamed performance for my audience was to make sure that SAG-AFTRA couldn’t get their hands on the jurisdiction. It was not putting anyone’s health at the forefront; it was working to keep the revenues going to them and not SAG-AFTRA.” To this day, members are frequently sharing stories about producers who are unable to get in touch with Actors’ Equity, keeping workers from the possibility of making an income and accruing benefits. According to councilor James Ludwig of Fair Wage On Stage, “we know how to work with our bargaining partners, our theatres and producers.” But do they? Grade — FAIL

Improving the live theatre industry

Even if member salaries are decreasing, as they are in many instances, these wages are still higher than the wages non-union artists working in live theatre receive. The #ActorPayProject collects wage information from theatres across the country for both union and non-union actors. According to a survey recently done of over 1,900 actors and stage managers not in Actors’ Equity, the average weekly salary reported was $360. That is an illegal wage in many states. And, although the majority of professional theatres are excellent places to work, some of the very employers that Actors’ Equity says it has jurisdiction over are committing wage theft against non-members doing the same jobs as members. The union has contract terms that, if enforced, would eliminate much of this problem. But because they don’t, members, specifically women working in the ensemble, continue to lose work to very professional non-members, whose rates, chosen by the employer, undercut the union. But this makes sense. Discrimination against ensemblists is in the foundation of Actors’ Equity. Historically, Actors’ Equity refused to recognize ensemblists as legitimate actors, and would not allow them into the union. Only when they feared losing their jobs to ensemblists during the strike of 1919, did they finally allow them to be union members. But they were segregated to their own subdivision, Chorus Equity, for 36 years.

Nationally, the non-union theatre industry continues to grow exponentially. This is believed by scholars to be a direct result of Equity’s controversial health insurance plan, which, according to US Congressional testimony, has kept the union from organizing more union jobs for decades. Rising health care costs fall directly onto employers, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the issue that fewer and fewer members are receiving any benefit from the plan. Pre-Covid, only 14% of members received coverage. By not enforcing its non-professional contract terms, the union gives theatres room to afford these additional costs. But the industry’s wage floor doesn’t rise.

In 2001, the national council of Actors’ Equity approved a plan that would put an end to illegal wages and ensure that everyone working in an “Equity” theatre was given a contract with legal employment terms. Although the council approved this policy, then executive director, Alan Eisenberg, was against it, and successfully worked to suppress it after the fact. So the problem perpetuates. Grade — FAIL

Just because a resolution is made, does not mean change ever happens. The work remains. Are changes happening? No. Actors’ Equity claims it wants to do the work, but they haven’t done it. To be clear, they need to get to work. Fast. Because to date, Actors’ Equity has completely mismanaged the live theatre industry for artists under the guise of ‘equity’. In truth, they operate well outside of what is equitable for everyone and dabble heavily in oppression. Just like when Actors’ Equity began over 100 years ago.

As Equity struggles to find its place in a post-pandemic world, it would be well served to look beyond politics, power, and greed. That’s the point of the pandemic. If it wants to lead, its leaders need to spend less time starting arguments, and more time fixing the issues they’ve helped create. Signing the agreement and getting the artists they want to represent back to work would be a good first step. Then, they must work to repair the relationships they’ve broken with all their lies. They need to show everyone — SAG-AFTRA, employers, council, and artists (members and non-members alike) — that they can be trusted. Most importantly, Equity needs to stop putting people’s livelihoods on the line so that its leaders can keep looking for a bigger piece. Maybe Mary McColl and Kate Shindle haven’t figured it out yet: Covid. Sucks. Artists around the country have mourned the losses of the past seven months and have been forced to come face to face with today’s reality. Mary McColl and Kate Shindle need to do the same. As more employers end their relationship with Actors’ Equity, and collective goods offered to members like audition access and health care disappear, what value will the union be able to provide the entertainment industry if they don’t?

Art is about relationships. The only way that Actors’ Equity will ever be an organization of value is if it works on that. Otherwise, it is irrelevant. And it won’t be brought back for another season. Artists will create something new. That’s what we do for a living.

So, with that I ask you, is Actors’ Equity worth saving? Or have we allowed it to become too obsolete to bring back? Whatever the answer is, the clock is ticking…

This is your five-minute call for the top of Act Two.