The Screen Actors Guild, which represents the vast majority of actors in American film and television, has announced the results of their elections to the National Board Of Directors.
The poll results were released on 18 September 2008, with approximately 25 per cent of the Guild’s membership in the Hollywood and New York divisions casting a vote. The run-up to the election had seen bitter infighting taking place between the two primary electoral slates – MembershipFirst, which was in control of the union before the election, and Unite For Strength, which advocated several policies that were diametrically opposed to that of the former slate. UFS was strongly supported by the New York division, which saw MF as being a Hollywood-centric faction that cared little for events outside of Tinseltown, whereas MF still had a large support base in Los Angeles.
The press release from the SAG, including the results, is attached after the jump. Our analysis of what this means for the union, and for their ongoing contract negotiations with the Alliance Of Motion Picture And Television Producers will follow after the reactions over the weekend, on the SciFiNow Blog, located at http://blog.scifinow.co.uk.
Los Angeles (September 18) — Screen Actors Guild today announced election results for the Guild’s national board of directors. Twenty-three of the 69 national board seats were open for election this year, representing Screen Actors Guild’s Hollywood, New York and Regional Branch Divisions. The newly elected national board members will assume office on September 25.
SAG’s Hollywood Division elected 11 new national board members; the New York Division elected five members; and seven national board members were elected from the union’s branches in Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Houston, Nashville, Nevada, and Washington D.C./Baltimore.
Board members elected from the Hollywood Division:Amy Brenneman, Adam Arkin, JoBeth Williams, Scott Bakula, Ken Howard, Lainie Kazan, Kate Walsh, Keith Carradine, Joely Fisher, Morgan Fairchild and Pamela Reed (all three-year terms.)
Joe Bologna, Marcia Wallace, Dule Hill, Doug Savant, Clancy Brown, Gabrielle Carteris, Clyde Kusatsu, L. Scott Caldwell, Ashley Crow, Ned Vaughn, Richard Speight, Jr., Alan Ruck, Stacey Travis, Jane Austin, France Nuyen, Anthony DeSantis, Eugene Boggs, Tim DeKay, Bill Smitrovich, Charles Shaughnessy, Assaf Cohen, and Yale Summers were elected to serve as national board alternates and to the Hollywood division board of directors (all one-year terms).
Board members elected from the New York Division:
Sam Robards, Rebecca Damon, Matt Servitto, Traci Godfrey, Mark Blum. (all three-year terms).
Jack Landròn, Eric Bogosian, Ralph Byers, Joe Narciso, John Rothman, Jay Potter, Kevin Scullin, Marc Baron, and Manny Alfaro were elected to serve as national board alternates and to the New York Division board of directors (all one-year terms.)
Board members elected from the Regional Branch Division:
Bill Mootos (Boston – three-year term), Suzanne Burkhead (Dallas/Fort Worth – three-year term), Ed Kelly (Detroit – three-year term), James Huston (Houston – three-year term), Cece DuBois (Nashville – three-year term), Art Lynch (Nevada – three-year term), Stephen F. Schmidt (Washington D.C./Baltimore– three-year term).
SAG President Alan Rosenberg stated, “I congratulate those members newly elected to our board of directors and I look forward to working closely with each of them. Now it’s time to work in tandem on behalf of SAG members throughout the country, to get a fair contract we can all be proud of. A union divided benefits only the employers and SAG members deserve nothing less than unified, focused leadership.”
Ballots for all eligible SAG members in Hollywood and New York were mailed on August 19 with a September 18 return deadline. Ballots were tabulated today at SAG headquarters by the independent election company, Integrity Voting Systems. A total of 13,793 ballots were tabulated in the Hollywood Division (representing 24.84 percent of ballots mailed in the Hollywood Division) and 5,458 ballots were tabulated in the New York Division (representing 23.76 percent of ballots mailed in the New York Division). The number of ballots returned in the Regional Branch elections varied by region.
