It’s quite amusing to watch the Screen Actors Guild break out into a full-blown civil war, with an undemocratic coup thrown in, all while trying to negotiate a contract with a formidable enemy. When this is all wrapped up and rich actors have destroyed the ability of middle class actors to make a living in the future, a book or two should be written to illustrate how not to conduct a contract negotiation. We are witnessing an epic failure and the villains are quite obvious: Amy Brenneman, Kate Walsh, Ken Howard, Ned Vaughn, James Cromwell and Adam Arkin and their pals.

I should disclose that I am a member of SAG and make a decent wage as an actor, but I’m not one of the actors affected by this contract. I have no dog in this fight. I don’t much like acting in TV shows or movies because I don’t like homework. The amount of time wasted preparing to get a chance to get an audition to get a part is not worth it, in my opinion. I only act in commercials and am quite happy doing so. No studying, no preparation, just walk in, act like an idiot and off you go. It’s a pretty easy way to make money and I don’t have to spend a day sitting in a chair next to shocking assholes like James Spader. Seriously, he is one of the worst human beings I have ever worked with. William Shatner, on the other hand, is a peach.

If you were paying attention to the entertainment news Monday, you would have noticed SAG fired its chief negotiator. They then replaced him with a guy who is known for working with producers. You know, the other side. The enemy, as it were. His quickly released his first public comments as national executive director.

Oh. Here’s a small bit of information. A union’s only power comes from the threat of shutting down business. Without the threat of a strike, unions don’t really have much to use during negotiations. It’s pretty much the first chapter in Union Negotiations for Retards. Actors like Kate Walsh and Amy Brenneman (who appear together in the piece of shit that is Private Practice) just took away any power SAG may have to get a decent contract. Oddly, Amy is a producer and Kate is married to a studio executive. Who would have known?

So, how did these morons come into power? Here’s where SAG becomes an amusing farce of a union. They were elected. They ran against the current SAG leadership in September and won. Fair and square, right? The democratic process, is it? Sort of. If you looked at the candidates and the winners, you’d notice one thing: Only famous people won. It had nothing to do with policies and stances, it was only about fame.

Sad and pathetic. The vast majority of actors in the union make little to no money and they voted for famous people, without considering their views. Now they are about to be destroyed by the new board, which only seems to care about the interest of rich actors. Sounds like a certain country named America over the past 28 years, doesn’t it? The little guy voting for the people who will fuck him over the most, over and over again.

Kate, Adam and Amy have a name for their group – Unite for Strength. It’s Orwellian and could have been dreamed up by the great Karl Rove. When Unite for Strength first formed, they wanted to introduce “qualified voting.” That would have eliminated actors who haven’t worked much in the past five years from voting on a contract. That’s called “Uniting,” I guess. The National SAG Board voted to send a strike authorization to members. Now, the negotiators would have a big weapon to hold over the heads of the studios.

Wait, hold on. The economy went into the shitter. Amy and Kate and their minions saw an opening. They took their fight pubic. They placed ads in papers and gave interviews, completely splitting the union (the dumbest thing you can to during a negotiation). There's this crazy saying, "United We Stand, Divided We Fall." You'd have to be a fucking idiot not to understand the "divided" part. So, the group held an unconstitutional meeting in New York, during which the president of SAG and Dave Allen, the lead negotiator, were chastised and vilified. They also sort of forgot to invite actors on the New York Board who supported Allen, like Eric Begosian. It was pretty much a Salem Witch Trial sort of affair.

Now the membership was in a tizzy. Actors creating drama, who knew that would happen? Unite for Strength demanded the National Board rescind the strike authorization vote. More meetings were held. Lots of screaming and yelling. So, Allen agreed to rescind the vote and he also said SAG should send the contract offer to the membership for a vote. That’s called a compromise. Turns out he can negotiate. Seems extremely fair, right? Nope.

Unite for Strength then held a meeting to oust Allen two weeks ago. Well, they didn't actually hold the meeting to oust Allen, they were asked point blank if that was their intention and they said "No." It was just an ordinary business meeting. But once it started, they introduced a motion to oust Allen –– that way no one could prepare a defense for him. Some SAG leadership filibustered the meeting using procedural moves. Seriously, all this shit happened DURING a contract negotiation. How do you think negotiations are going?

Finally, on Monday, the board voted to remove Allen.

Oooooo. A “task force.” Nothing instills confidence like replacing a negotiating committee with a task force. (Insert picture of studio heads laughing, drinking champagne and doing blow off hookers asses.)

Insane narcissism.

And that’s why SAG is a farce of a union. If this were a real union, people like Amy Brennerman and Kate Walsh would fear for their lives, as God intended. Did I mention they implemented new rules forbidding the President of SAG from speaking to the press on the union's behalf? Yeah, they president of the union cannot speak to the media. Brilliant. The elected leader of the union has been muted. I wonder if that will cause half the union to become enraged. Hey, I did mention all this is happening during a contract negotiation, right?

The worst part of this entire story is that Unite for Strength is using this contract negotiation stalemate to undermine the union in hopes of merging with AFTRA. Yes, they are making SAG less powerful to merge it with a shockingly ineffective union. It’s mind-boggling how fucking stupid these people are. AFTRA has tried to merge with SAG 17 times over the years. And 17 times, the SAG membership has said no. So, obviously the best thing to do is to use backhanded maneuvers to push a SAG-AFTRA merger. But that is the Unite for Strength endgame. Unfortunately, it’s one that will fail.

You’re going to hear a lot of crazy shit about SAG from here on out. In the end, this will be an epic fail for the Hollywood history books. This is the death of a union. Just remember the names of the people who killed it: Amy Brenneman, Kate Walsh, Ken Howard, Ned Vaughn, James Cromwell and Adam Arkin.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.