SAG-AFTRA

Spring 2016

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8 SAG-AFTRA | Spring 2016 | SAGAFTRA.org A Letter from the Executive Vice President R E B E C C A D A M O N "As the industry continues to grow and shift and we face the resulting challenges, it will be my mission as your executive vice president to create real results that improve your life as a performer." Dear Member, S ignificant change starts with a good idea and the willingness of people to put themselves on the line to make that idea a reality. Standing in the West Wing of the White House on a recent weekend, I was reminded how true this is both for our country and for our union. We are lucky to live at a time when possibilities and opportunities abound, but that freedom has come to us because generations of Americans have sacrificed tremendously, sometimes even with the highest price of their lives to keep us free. In a time where we often look to our differences rather than our similarities, fed by a 24/7 news cycle that can hold us in its grip with each new story, I look to the basics of who we are and who we can be if we can set aside the things that hold us back rather than unite us. For SAG-AFTRA members, one of the questions that divided members for decades was the idea of becoming one union or remaining two separate unions. With the merger of Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA, that question has been settled and we are no longer divided. Like a fledgling United States, we have the opportunity to focus on making so many decisions about who we will be as a union here at our beginning. While helping to create this union during my work with the Group for One Union, I treasured my experience of working with Ken Howard, Gabrielle Carteris, Mike Hodge and leaders from across the country because we saw a problem, a glaring problem, and we took concrete, specific steps to merge these unions to correct that problem. As a result of that action, SAG-AFTRA is in a far better position to protect you and we have a better union that is built upon a strong foundation. As the industry continues to grow and shift and we face the resulting challenges, it will be my mission as your executive vice president to create real results that improve your life as a performer. Together, we are building a strong union — a new union, a modern union, a more flexible union — from those two unions that were great, yet were vulnerable. And with that building, we are finally able to focus on the kinds of things that will make SAG-AFTRA even more powerful for its members. We must engage our high-profile members in a deep and meaningful way so they in turn are engaged in our organizing and negotiations. We must invest in the kind of technological change that brings us up to speed with a landscape that looks nothing like what it did just a few short years ago. We must recruit the next generation of performers into our leadership and into the family of SAG-AFTRA in order to make the work we do more relevant. They are our future and the time is now. This has been a journey. I love this union. I love the members. I love the kinds of remarkable, never- thought-of-before things we can do when we allow ourselves the possibilities. I also know in my heart we are only beginning to realize what we can achieve. Onward together, Rebecca Damon

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