The Screen Actors Guild has sent a membership-wide email from four trustees of the SAG-Producers Pension and Health Plans -- all SAG members -- that criticizes "selective reading" of a benefits study by opponents of a SAG consolidation with AFTRA. The study is referred to as the Mercer report.
"We are dismayed by arguments based upon a selective reading of our work materials being made by those who oppose the plan for guild consolidation, which is completely separate from merger of the [benefits] plans," the email, sent out Tuesday night, states.
The four trustees -- Bob Kaliban, the board chairman, Daryl Anderson, Al Hubbs, and Kitty Swink -- spoke in the email both as trustees, then later as SAG members, closing the missive by saying, "We are also guild members, actors and former union leaders, and we wish also to convey our firm opinion that consolidation and affiliation is right for our guild, and presents the best scenario for merger of the plans. In the absence of consolidation, we believe our chances for success in creating strong, united health and pension plans -- ones toward which all your covered earnings would count -- will dwindle toward impossibility."
The quartet's email was attempting to discount a fury that arose last week about a confidential memorandum from Sheldon Kasdan, vice president and senior labor counsel for Vivendi Universal Entertainment, who is a producer trustee for the benefits plans. Kasdan's memo predicted that a consolidation of the guild's and AFTRA's benefits plans would cause SAG participants to have to subsidize AFTRA's members. He also questioned whether a merger of the plans would benefit SAG pension-and-health members.
Wearing their trustee hats, the four actors said they wanted to "clarify four points" regarding the controversial Mercer study and how the benefits plans' 36 trustees -- 18 guild members and 18 producers' reps -- have responded to the report. The four points basically stated that:
1. The Mercer report had "one purpose only: to make sure that, at this stage of the process, there were no absolute barriers to consolidation of the plans. Mercer was not asked for an opinion as to whether merging the plans would be in the interests of the participants."
2. The Mercer study concludes "there are 'no critical barriers' to the merger of the plans and that there are benefits to be realized from merger." The assertion is a repetition of one made last week by SAG President Melissa Gilbert and AFTRA President John Connolly.
3. In direct criticism of the Kasdan memo, the trustees said, "We do not agree with much of what is contained in that leaked memo and, above all, do NOT agree with its premature conclusion that merger of the plans will not be in the best interests of participants."
4. As a result of the Mercer study, the trustees' benefits consolidation committee is studying various models of merged pension-and-health plans. The panel is doing so "with support from the management trustees," the email asserted. "Until we have the opportunity to review and consider those models, no one can say definitively whether a merger is in the best interests of participants."
SaveSAG, a group of opponents to the consolidation, last week criticized SAG's not releasing the Mercer report so members could review it and determine whether they themselves feel merger of the plans would be beneficial. The group also used Kasdan's memo to question melding the plans.