Ohio-Pittsburgh Newsletter - November, 2012

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OHIO – PITTSBURGH OFFICES: CLEVELAND: Cathy Nowlin Associate Executive Director 820 W. Superior Ave., #240 Cleveland, OH 44113 PH: 216.781.2255 FAX: 216.781.2257 CINCINNATI: Tim Williams National Broadcast Representative Kim Davis Assistant Executive Director 700 W. Pete Rose Way, #124 Cincinnati, OH 45203 PH: 513.579.8668 FAX: 513.579.1617 PITTSBURGH: John Hilsman Executive Director Susanne Pearson Membership Coordinator 625 Stanwix St., #2007 Pittsburgh, PA 15222 PH: 412.281.6767 FAX: 412.281.2444 Join me for a tale of how we are attempting to set up the working parts of Your New Local. I don’t know that “fascinating” is an accurate description of this yarn, but if you concentrate, you’ll learn what your elected leaders have been up to. Who Is In This Local Now? Part of the SAG-AFTRA Merger Agreement and the National Constitution for the new union redrew our boundaries and made Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and the broadcasters in Western New York one new, consolidated Local. When SAG-AFTRA came into existence with the “yes” vote, so did our new Local. (The old “Locals” from AFTRA and “Branches” and their “councils” from SAG are now referred to with the pre-word “legacy.” The legacy SAG terms “Branches” and “councils” are being set aside, although in our Local we are taking councils up again with a different meaning; more on that later.) “Ohio” means all of legacy Cleveland AFTRA and all of the Ohio portions of Legacy Tri-State AFTRA. Western Pennsylvania for legacy AFTRA means Pittsburgh’s former coverage area, which is a great deal of Pennsylvania other than Philadelphia. Western New York includes the broadcast unit members in legacy Buffalo and legacy Rochester. Within that defined area, all legacy SAG members became part of this new Local as well. (There are a few wrinkles to the simplicity of that statement, but believe me, that discussion is for another space.) What to do? Form a Committee. When we learned this consolidation was imminent, your elected leaders knew we had to be proactive in getting the governance of our new Local organized. A template Local constitution was included in the new national constitution, with the understanding that it was a working document. Locals were encouraged to design the governance that would work for them by, among other things, drafting a new Local constitution in concurrence with the national constitution. I proposed that an Executive Committee For Designing Future Governance be formed, consisting of the presidents and National Board members of the legacy AFTRA locals, and the SAG reps from our geographic area. This Executive Committee would report to the larger Committee FDFG, consisting of all of the legacy boards in our cities. No good deed goes unpunished, I agreed to be chair. But wait, more necessary background: Before we go further down that path, let me add another development. For an interim period until a new Local constitution can be implemented and elections held, the current Board of our new larger Local consists of all of the elected board members from our legacy Locals. Conveniently, all the SAG reps in our area were also AFTRA Board members, so everyone was included easily. But our legacy boards continue to meet separately. Those legacy boards voted individually on a resolution to form the committee referred to above, and all did approve it. However, staff wanted to make sure we had a body capable of reacting quickly if there were issues of management that required Local-wide board approval, but that didn’t rise to the level of convening every board in every legacy Local or, worse, trying to gather or poll the entire new Local Board, large and spread out as it is. So those legacy boards voted on a further proposal that the already- formed Executive Committee for Designing Future Governance, being representative of our entire geography and types of work, also be formed into an executive committee of the Local Board. Two slightly different functions, one for future governance design, the other for current governance execution. Ohio – Pittsburgh November 2012 Continued on page 2 Developing Governance for Our Newly Constituted Local by Joe Gunderman, Chair of the Executive Committee, Ohio-Pittsburgh Local Front: John Hilsman, Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Joe Gunderman and Cathy Nowlin Back: Mike Kraft, Denise Jaeckel, Mark Roberts, John Lawson, Rick Pfeiffer, Chris Lacey.

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Ohio-Pittsburgh Newsletter - November, 2012

Transcript of Ohio-Pittsburgh Newsletter - November, 2012

Page 1: Ohio-Pittsburgh Newsletter - November, 2012

OHIO – PITTSBURGH OFFICES:

CLEVELAND:

Cathy NowlinAssociate Executive Director

820 W. Superior Ave., #240Cleveland, OH 44113PH: 216.781.2255FAX: 216.781.2257

CINCINNATI:

Tim WilliamsNational Broadcast Representative

Kim DavisAssistant Executive Director

700 W. Pete Rose Way, #124Cincinnati, OH 45203PH: 513.579.8668FAX: 513.579.1617

PITTSBURGH:

John HilsmanExecutive Director

Susanne Pearson Membership Coordinator

625 Stanwix St., #2007Pittsburgh, PA 15222PH: 412.281.6767FAX: 412.281.2444

Join me for a tale of how we are attempting to set up the working parts of Your New Local. I don’t know that “fascinating” is an accurate description of this yarn, but if you concentrate, you’ll learn what your elected leaders have been up to.

Who Is In This Local Now?

Part of the SAG-AFTRA Merger Agreement and the National Constitution for the new union redrew our boundaries and made Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and the broadcasters in Western New York one new, consolidated Local. When SAG-AFTRA came into existence with the “yes” vote, so did our new Local. (The old “Locals” from AFTRA and “Branches” and their “councils” from SAG are now referred to with the pre-word “legacy.” The legacy SAG terms “Branches” and “councils” are being set aside, although in our Local we are taking councils up again with a different meaning; more on that later.)

“Ohio” means all of legacy Cleveland AFTRA and all of the Ohio portions of Legacy Tri-State AFTRA. Western Pennsylvania for legacy AFTRA means Pittsburgh’s former coverage area, which is a great deal of Pennsylvania other than Philadelphia. Western New York includes the broadcast unit members in legacy Buffalo and legacy Rochester. Within that defined area, all legacy SAG members became part of this new Local as well. (There are a few wrinkles to the simplicity of that statement, but believe me, that discussion is for another space.)

What to do? Form a Committee.

When we learned this consolidation was imminent, your elected leaders knew we had to be proactive in getting the governance of our new Local organized. A template Local constitution was included in the new national constitution, with the understanding that it was a working document. Locals were encouraged to design the governance that would

work for them by, among other things, drafting a new Local constitution in concurrence with the national constitution.

I proposed that an Executive Committee For Designing Future Governance be formed, consisting of the presidents and National Board members of the legacy AFTRA locals, and the SAG reps from our geographic area. This Executive Committee would report to the larger Committee FDFG, consisting of all of the legacy boards in our cities. No good deed goes unpunished, I agreed to be chair.

But wait, more necessary background:

Before we go further down that path, let me add another development. For an interim period until a new Local constitution can be implemented and elections held, the current Board of our new larger Local consists of all of the elected board members from our legacy Locals. Conveniently, all the SAG reps in our area were also AFTRA Board members, so everyone was included easily. But our legacy boards continue to meet separately. Those legacy boards voted individually on a resolution to form the committee referred to above, and all did approve it.

However, staff wanted to make sure we had a body capable of reacting quickly if there were issues of management that required Local-wide board approval, but that didn’t rise to the level of convening every board in every legacy Local or, worse, trying to gather or poll the entire new Local Board, large and spread out as it is. So those legacy boards voted on a further proposal that the already-formed Executive Committee for Designing Future Governance, being representative of our entire geography and types of work, also be formed into an executive committee of the Local Board. Two slightly different functions, one for future governance design, the other for current governance execution.

Ohio – Pittsburgh November 2012

Continued on page 2

Developing Governance forOur Newly Constituted Local

by Joe Gunderman, Chair of the Executive Committee, Ohio-Pittsburgh Local

Front: John Hilsman, Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Joe Gunderman and Cathy Nowlin Back: Mike Kraft, Denise Jaeckel, Mark Roberts, John Lawson, Rick Pfeiffer, Chris Lacey.

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500 miles. About what you’d expect to cover in a day of cross-country driving. That’s how big our new “Local” is, from Cincinnati to Rochester. In between lies a key part of America’s heartland, a region rich in the history of immigrant workers building their dreams on the back of hard work and sacrifice. A region now reinventing itself on top of the decay of rust-belt industry, our area was home to America’s steel industry, rubber industry and major portions of the coal-mining, auto-manufacturing and glass-working industries, among others.

Five states. All of Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, a sliver of West Virginia, a few counties in Kentucky and broadcast members in upstate New York. Different traditions, different economies, different media markets all lumped into this new mega “Local.”

Unions. No area of this country knows the dignity of labor and the tradition of organized labor like ours does. The American Federation of Labor was founded in 1886 in Columbus, Ohio. When the advent of modern industry changed the dynamics of the workplace and new organizing tactics were needed, a new organization, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, was formed in Pittsburgh in 1938. Those two organizations later merged to become what we now know as the AFL-CIO. Current AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka hails from Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Social Movements. Suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass both made their homes in Rochester, N.Y. The Underground Railroad smuggled escaped slaves the entire 500-mile length of our new “Local,” from where they crossed the Ohio River in Cincinnati to the crossing of the Niagara River outside Buffalo into Canada. The tragedy of Kent State brought home the fact that the Vietnam War was taking the lives of young Americans at home as well as in the jungles of Vietnam.

Those are just some of the things I think about when I think about the area of our new “Local.” The things that tie us together, the things that make us one, the things that have the potential to make us proud of that large area, look at it anew and claim it as our own. We will always be proud of our own cities, just like we’re proud of our own neighborhoods within those cities, but now

we’re part of something bigger. Our job, both members and staff, is to work to make that “bigger” mean better.

This will be a work in progress for some time; no one is going to decree exactly how this is going to work best. We have a dedicated staff of five people, with one recent vacancy we expect to fill in the near future, bringing our current staff total to six. We have three offices: Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati; something that is unique to any SAG-AFTRA Local. Unlike many other Locals, however, we did not bring into our Local any legacy SAG staff to boost our strength and take care of the additional responsibilities of new territory and new jurisdiction. Your staff has already addressed this and we hope to have approval to bring on additional staff in the near future.

For our acting community, our legacy AFTRA Locals worked closely together in the past as the CPT Region, so we carry forward and build on that experience, even as we add the responsibility of covering legacy SAG jurisdiction in theatrical film work. For broadcasters, your new Local covers as many stations as large Locals like Chicago and San Francisco, more than large Locals like Boston and Philadelphia. There’s a lot to be proud of there, but it will be a challenge to stretch our limited resources to cover more with less.

I am determined that the staff of this Local will work both for and with the members of this Local to move our union forward. The door is always open, your questions are always welcome, your involvement is both needed and wanted. As we lay the groundwork for elections of our first elected “Local” leadership in the spring of 2013, your staff and the elected leaders of legacy SAG and legacy AFTRA in the area are all working hard to make this something special.

Stay tuned, stay engaged and stay union!

Continued from page 1

Executive Director Report - JOHN HILSMAN

500 MILESAnd yours truly is the chair of both, as it turns out. By everyone’s consent.

What has the Committee for Designing Future Governance done so far?

As a Future Governance EC, we first met in New York, before the last-ever AFTRA plenary in March, a week before the SAG-AFTRA vote was complete. Subsequently, we met by phone conference. Each of us was tasked to go to our legacy boards and our members and find out what they wanted to see in the new Local governance structure. Each Legacy city was asked to come up with at least five proposals.

Gathering that information together, the EC met in Cleveland, face to face, on July 1. I called together a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board, which dealt with a few issues, then we adjourned that meeting and reconvened as the EC of the Committee For Designing Future Governance.

All proposals from across our region were brought to the table in Cleveland in July, discussed, evaluated and tweaked. (We had a small number of ECers who couldn’t attend, but sent their thoughts.) The first determination about any proposal was whether it should be something codified in a constitution, a firm legal document that is appropriately difficult to change and adapt, or whether a specific governmental idea was one of policy, something that supports our procedures, but doesn’t rise to the level or strictures of being written in the constitution. Rules of procedure in meetings are just one small example of what is generally not in a constitution, but can be established in policy decisions, giving them weight of policy and precedent, but easier to change when necessary.

After some very productive hours in which those present brought logic and intelligence to bear, the process was given over to a small committee to do the writing. Mike Kraft chairs it; he, Rick Pfeiffer and John Lawson took on the writing, with me on the committee as well.

Here is the major governance structure that has been drafted, again, based on input from across the Local:

“Councils,” what are they?

There is a strong desire to preserve our representative structure as it stood when we were separate Legacy Locals in AFTRA and Legacy Branches in SAG. But now we must have a central body as well. So, while there will be a Local Board seating representatives from our entire area, we are proposing the concept of Councils. Councils are areas, usually with a city as their base, that have a geographic and work-related unique relationship. And, yes, the five Legacy AFTRA Locals are the first Councils of our new Local. So Cincinnati, as

one example, will be a Council, representing all the Ohio area of the Legacy Tri-State Local, including Dayton and Columbus.

Any geographic part of the new Local will be in one of the Councils, the same way that outlying areas were included in legacy AFTRA and SAG, connected to the nearest center. These Councils will have Council Leadership Committees, known as Council Committees or CCs. CC’s will have a chair, vice chair, and consist of at least, but not limited to, five people. They will be the reps in closest touch with the members in their area. Each Council area will elect one of their members to serve as a representative to the Local board from that Council.

One important idea in this structure is that new Councils can form. Should Dayton start becoming an active work center with a highly involved member base, they could decide, if they meet certain requirements, to form their own Council, initiate their own Council Committee, and send a rep to the Local Board. The entire Local would welcome such activism.

Presently, in the manner described above, the Councils will account for five Local Board members, the representatives from Councils in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc.

The New Local Board

What about the rest of the Local Board? Glad you asked.

Let’s start with the officers:

The top officer core, elected by the entire Local, shall consist of:

A president, a vice president, and a secretary-treasurer.

In addition to the eight Board members described above (three officers and five Council reps), there will be four At-Large Local Board representatives voted in by the entire Local.

As a possible addition, the Local constitution template from National specified that all National Board members are also to be

Your Executive Committee is:

Joe Gunderman, chairLegacy AFTRA Cleveland Vice President,National Board Member

Mike Kraft Legacy AFTRA Cleveland President

Paul MartinoLegacy AFTRA Pittsburgh President

Mark Roberts Legacy AFTRA Pittsburgh Treasurer,National Board Member

Lisa Ann GoldsmithLegacy SAG Representative,Pennsylvania

Denise Dal VeraLegacy AFTRA Tri-State Treasurer,National Board Member

John LawsonLegacy SAG Representative, Ohio,Legacy AFTRA Tri-State Vice President

Rick PfeifferLegacy AFTRA Buffalo President,National Board Member

June BallerLegacy AFTRA Rochester President

Denise JaeckelLegacy AFTRA Tri-State President

Continued on page 7

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Panel Chair: Rocco Dal Vera, Professor of Drama, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music; Panelists: Ken Howard, AEA member, Co-president SAG-AFTRA Roberta Reardon, Roberta Reardon, Co-president SAG-AFTRA and past National President of AFTRA Gabrielle Carteris, National vice-president, Los Angeles, SAG-AFTRA Denise Dal Vera, adjunct professor, University of Cincinnati Ira Mont, Actors’ Equity Association, 3rd Vice President Tom Miller, Actors’ Equity Association, Director of Education & Outreach.

In the changing context of actor’s unions, many faculty find it difficult to provide their theatre students with clear, simple advice about this critical aspect of the profession. On August 2nd, Actor’s Unions: a Bridge to the Profession for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference 2012 “Performance Civic Engagement: Advocate, Collaborate, Educate” was held in Washington, D.C. Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill to address this topic.

Union membership is complicated. The faculty and students in professional theater programs in universities need the support of a deliberate program and repeated encounters with knowledgeable members in order to understand all the ways unions impact their future careers. SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity function differently. It can be difficult for students to grasp the distinction between the ways a career develops in media work and stage work. Consequently, they can fail to understand the strategic ways in which the actors’ unions are career development partners. Educators are the gatekeepers of this process, and they often don’t have a thorough understanding of the issues. If unions can educate

the educators, it will impact our future members. The ATHE conference was the perfect place to make this connection. The constituency of ATHE is theatre professors from the full range of graduate (MA, MFA, PhD), undergraduate (BFA, BS, BA), and conservatory (AA, certificate) programs. These are the people teaching actors about their careers. Their ideas about unions and their understanding (or frequent misunderstandings) about unions are the first impressions given to new generations of actors as they begin their careers. At this historic moment, we have an opportunity to shape the opinions of those who will be shaping the opinions of the next generation of members (or non-members).

Worlds can collide in a good way. At the University of Cincinnati’s BFA Drama program at CCM, 90% of the BFA majors graduate with union membership was used as an example of what is possible for other schools in smaller markets. It was no coincidence that the Chair of the ATHE discussion Rocco Dal Vera -not only a member of ATHE but along with panel member Denise Dal Vera, both who are part of our local market and on staff at that University, focused the discussion on specific program support that is available to theatre departments. Panelists from SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity shared their thoughts about the future of performer’s unions, the current entertainment industry’s past challenges and future opportunities.

This panel discussed how performers’ unions can have more of a place in college theater programs. Engaging actors and local union offices during college training gives students a way to prepare to take their place in the profession during school in some cases and upon graduation wherever possible. More and more actors leave these professional programs without the knowledge of a union and the awareness of what goes into the business profession of being an actor.

The topics of the panel discussion included the introduction of the new SAG-AFTRA union, how membership and dues work for SAG-AFTRA / Equity (this would include membership candidacy programs, parent union status, reciprocal relationships), and

ACTOR’S UNIONS: A BRIDGE TO THE PROFESSION

At the D.C. Conference By Denise Dal Vera

With the merger of SAG and AFTRA, some Local policies have changed. Please see below on how we are handling cast clearances, Taft-Hartley’s and talent checks for dues payments.

Cast Clearance/Station 12Past practice – Agents would check status or rely on member to provide information.

Going forward – Agents will no longer be able to check a status and will rely on members to provide this information. A cast clearance form should be submitted by the production prior to work commencing.

Taft-HartleysPast practice – The forms were rarely filled out on set. The Local office would send a Taft-Hartley statement to the talent with their check.

Going forward – Taft Hartley statements must be completed by the producer and sent to the Local closest to where the work is taking place.

Talent Checks used as dues paymentsPast practice – Talent would sign an authorization for us to deposit their talent check to pay off their dues balance.

Going forward – This is no longer permitted. All dues/reinstatement/initiation fees MUST be paid prior to accepting any work.

GENERAL INFO:

We are thrilled to tell you that Safe Auto is now producing their latest round of commercials under a union contract!

Please check with your Local office (Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati) to make sure we have your current email address! This could potentially be our last printed newsletter and we don’t want you to miss out on updates.

Dues for the Nov. 2012 – April 2013 billing period will be arriving in your mailboxes soon. Remember, you can always pay online at www.sagaftra.org.

With the assistance of Local member Lori Hauser, we are revamping our Conservatory Program! If there is something specific you would like us to put together, please give me a call or send an email to [email protected]. To the chairs of this committee in Cleveland and Pittsburgh: Let me know how I can assist you in putting workshops together in your area or the region! The program cannot be a success without member input and involvement.

MEMBER RECOGNITIONCongratulations to…

Dale Hodges for her interview in Cincinnati Magazine!

Ken Strunk for booking a featured role in the movie Promised Land with Matt Damon!

Pepper Sweeney was just in a Carrie Underwood music video!

Vivian Goodman, WKSU reporter, producer and host who was inducted into the Press Club of Cleveland’s Journalism Hall of Fame on October 12.

MERGER UPDATES & MOREBy Kim Davis, Assistant Executive Director

Continued on page 6

Chris Lacey was an integral part of the AFTRA and now SAG-AFTRA staff. Chris was instrumental in coordinating our CPT (Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Tri-State) Regional Code, along with organizing the Indianapolis market with Denise Jaeckel. Chris was extremely well versed on all of our contracts, from TV to Radio to Non-Broadcast and the Network Code. With this knowledge, we all often leaned on him to provide immediate assistance for questions we could not answer. He was a gem and will be missed by all of us. His sense of humor and wittiness will leave a void in our day-to-day discussions.

Chris, on behalf of all of us — we wish you the very best, and thank you for everything you did in the CPT Region!

Depar tur e of Chris L acey

L-R: Rocco Dal Vera, Ken Howard, Roberta Reardon and Gabrielle Carteris

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members of the Local Board. As you know, our Local will have one National Board person (also elected by the whole Local).

This brings our total Local Board membership, with the current number of Councils, to 13 (12 if the NB member is elected to one of the Local Board seats independently of being on the NB).

Well, you’ve read all the way down to here, congratulations! Is your head spinning yet? See the list below to try and make logical sense of it.

Your Executive Committee continues to work on details, and those are still evolving at this point. But the alignment of the Councils and the Local Board is the heart of the governance we’ve proposed.

As of Sept. 18, the Executive Committee reviewed and approved the draft constitution. As this goes to press, it will be before the individual legacy Boards for the approval of what currently represents our Local Board.

What happens next? National SAG-AFTRA has to review our draft constitution, through at least two committees, and the National Board has to approve it.

So that’s what we’ve been doing. Forming a new union is an exciting but exhausting time, what with questions by the truckload and a lot of heavy lifting to get the institution headed down the road. I hope this report on what your elected leaders have been up to has been helpful. Contact your office if you have thoughts, concerns, questions or good barbecue recipes. Hey, life has its priorities!

Our recommended Local governance structure as shown in representative positions:

Councils (geographic regions, starting with legacy AFTRA boundaries)

Council Committees(CCs) (elected leadership of a Council)

Council Representatives to the Local Board(one per Council, elected by the Council)

At-Large Local Board Representatives(four, elected Local-wide)

Secretary-Treasurer (elected Local-wide)

Vice President (elected Local-wide)

President (elected Local-wide)

Continued from page 5Continued from page 2

recommendations for how to mentor students toward professional union memberships. The panel discussion also addressed union membership, non-union work in smaller markets and the role unions play in an acting career and the important role unions play in career/life development from higher education training through the whole of one’s career and into retirement.

While specific programmatic support differs in all local markets currently, the hope is that in time, the new SAG-AFTRA focus on education and outreach efforts will create and develop “best practices” that are consistent with current work now underway in many locals. While providing effective new tools needed to assist in the transition from a small market to large for students, in time, a coordinated effort for theatre departments, students and faculty around the country can include: guest lecturers, lesson plans, rubrics, checklists, PowerPoint programs and video aids. The positive result from the event by the Theater Professors and university programs was a strong interest in a SAG-AFTRA educational component and a more proactive relationship in the future.

We are proud to announce to our newly expanded membership that Cleveland member Tom Beres was presented with the prestigious FITZ Award at the very last Cleveland AFTRA Annual Membership Meeting, held immediately prior to the “birth” of our new union, SAG-AFTRA.

The award was created in 2005 in honor of and first presented to John FitzGerald, long-time Cleveland member and H&R Trustee who passed away on Dec. 24, 2010. The presentation this year recognized Tom’s outstanding service, dedication, loyalty and passionate commitment to the ideals of union solidarity. A member since 1973, he began working as a broadcaster in Columbus before he transferred to Cleveland in 1979 for his job at WKYC-TV, where he currently works as the senior political reporter (obviously, this is keeping him very busy these days … what a great time to be a political reporter in Ohio!). He has served as the steward there for more than 25 years, participated in countless negotiations and has been elected to and served on the Local board for more than 23 years.

Fellow WKYC broadcaster Dick Russ presented Tom with the plaque and a framed certificate, and Tom’s name has been added to the list of 10 previous recipients on the wall plaque that maintains a place of honor within the Cleveland office.

Congratulations, Tom — and thanks for all that you’ve done on behalf of your union brothers and sisters!

Insurance for Agents& Members

SAG-AFTRA Offers Members, Franchised Agents Access to Competitive Health, Life, Home and Auto Insurance

SAG-AFTRA has negotiated a contract specifically designed for SAG-AFTRA members and franchised talent agents nationwide. These products are being made available in order to assist those seeking additional insurance or for members who do not currently qualify for either the SAG-Producers Health Plan or AFTRA Health Plan.

In conjunction with Marsh U.S. Consumer, a broker and administrator of affinity insurance and membership programs, SAG-AFTRA has launched a new user-friendly “Health Mart” website that empowers members and franchised agents to access a multitude of competitive health care options with major insurers. SAG-AFTRA’s agreement with Marsh, which operates a U.S.-only call support center, provides insurance opportunities in many areas, including health, Medicare supplement, dental, home, auto, life and long-term care.

“In light of hardships caused by rising health care costs, we are excited about providing this one-stop online shop for health insurance options that we believe will prove beneficial to our members and to agents.” said SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director David White.

SAG-AFTRA members can learn more about available insurance options online by logging in to their member account at SAGAFTRA.org.

This is our first newsletter since we’ve become SAG-AFTRA. What does the change mean? It’s still not clear. But the one thing that’s becoming abundantly clear is that there will be some enduring growing pains for the next year or two.

In my opinion, we are facing a clash of cultures, both on the national level and in our newly formed local. Don’t get me wrong. This is a friendly clash. Everyone is making a genuine effort to find the best course forward.

On the national level, you have the former AFTRA which was run from the bottom up. Our locals had a lot of say about what our policies and practices would be. A National Convention wrote the rules and constitution governing our Union. It was democratic, the members decided.

Legacy SAG, however, was much more centralized. SAG Branches had much less leeway in determining local policy and practice. The elected National Board determined all policy and there was no national convention.

I am not suggesting that one way was better than the other way. But now we are faced with the task of blending the two very different cultures and deciding which way works best for the new SAG-AFTRA. The hope is that the best ideas from both former unions will make SAG-AFTRA a better union for all. We are already planning a convention for next summer.

While the staff at National struggles with these changes, we here in your new local are learning as we go. Joe Gunderman from the Legacy Cleveland local has done a superb job in this newsletter of spelling out in great detail the work we’ve been doing to form a new local.

It’s not SAG-AFTRA Pittsburgh. It’s not SAG-AFTRA Cleveland. It’s SAG-AFTRA Ohio-Pittsburgh.

So how do we form a new local without stepping on someone’s toes? It can’t all be run from Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Rochester, Buffalo or Cincinnati. We are all ONE.

And the Brothers and Sisters who sit on our executive committee (see Gunderman’s article) have done an outstanding job of writing a new constitution and figuring out how this new local will function.

There are still many obstacles. We don’t have a budget yet. We have an enormous geographical region to represent. We are in desperate need of MORE staff to cover all that territory and service all the additional members we now have. And we are aggressively pressing National to allow us to create some new positions.

We are working hard to confront all these problems. And we are doing it together, with a great resolve to consider what’s best for all. Hopefully, SAG-AFTRA National will follow our example in forging a stronger and more diverse union for the future.

Becoming SAG-AFTRABy Paul Martino Anchor/Reporter KDKA-TV NEWS

What does the change mean?

Cleveland Member Honored By Cathy NowlinFITZ AWARD

L-R: Gabrielle Carteris, Thomas Miller (AEA), Ira Mont (AEA), Denise Dal Vera

Page 5: Ohio-Pittsburgh Newsletter - November, 2012

SAG-AFTRA Ohio-Pittsburgh700 W. Pete Rose Way., Suite #124

Cincinnati, OH 45203

Talent AgenciesCleveland Franchised Talent Agencies

Docherty, Inc2044 Euclid Avenue, Suite 500Cleveland, OH 44115Ph: (216) 522-1300 Fax: (216) 522-0520Joan [email protected]

The Talent Group, Inc2530 Superior Avenue, Suite 6CCleveland, OH 44114Ph: (216) 622-8011 Fax: (216) 622-7552Stephen [email protected]

Pittsburgh Franchised Talent Agencies

Docherty Pittsburgh109 Market Street, 3rd Fl.Pittsburgh, PA 15222Ph: 412-765-1400 Fax: 412-765-0403Contact: Deb [email protected]

The Talent Group2820 Smallman StreetPittsburgh, PA 15222Ph: 412-471-8011 Fax: 412-471-0875Contact: Stephen [email protected]

Cincinnati/Columbus/DaytonFranchised Talent Agencies

CAM Talent ColumbusPh: 614.488.1122 Fax: 614.488.38951350 W. 5th Ave., #25 – Columbus, OH 43212CAM Cincinnati phone line 513.421.1795www.camtalent.com

Heyman Talent Cincinnati Ph: 513.533.3113 Fax: 513.533.3135700 W. Pete Rose Way, #434Cincinnati, OH 45203

Heyman Talent ColumbusPh: 614.291.8200 Fax: 614.291.8201772 N. High St., #102Columbus, OH 43215www.heymantalent.com

PC Goenner Talent CincinnatiPh: 513.262.040410948 Reading Rd., #312Cincinnati, OH 45241

PC Goenner Talent DaytonPh: 937.586.07991000 East 2nd St.Dayton, OH 45402

PC Goenner Talent ColumbusPh: 614.450.3582FAX: 614.459.35844700 Reed Rd., Suite MColumbus, OH 43220