Urgent: Merger - Pro or Con? Let's hear both sides!

February 13, 2012

Dear Mr. White and Ms. Hedgpeth

We are the membership you serve.

In the interest of making a fully informed decision regarding merger, we are requesting that for the next Merger Forum you provide 2 board members who voted for merger and 2 board members who voted against this version of merger to be the only people answering questions presented by the members of our union.

We urge you to select Mr. David Joliffe and Ms. Anne-Marie Johnson for the minority view and whomever you see fit to represent the majority opinion.

We need more information. Every issue has pros and cons.
We further suggest that, in this forum, the members be restricted to posing questions of one minute in length and the board members be restricted to giving answers of no more than three minutes duration.

A merger with AFTRA is far too important an issue to go into with out being fully informed.

Merger cannot be undone.

The way ahead will neither be all sunshine and flowers or all gloom and despair
but the way forward must be chosen by a membership in absolutely no doubt that their leadership is playing fairly, openly and is unafraid to present both sides of the issues.

If Merger is a truly good thing , then no amount of info from the other side can diminish that fact.

This Guild was created by brave people who put their careers on the line and furthered by a generation who gave up their own residuals for the greater good of the profession's future.

We should make sure we write the next chapter in the same honorable fashion.

A 1000 word Minority Report,
(http://www.deadline.com/2012/02/exclusive-heres-draft-of-opposition-statement-to-sag-aftra-merger/)

cannot possibly provide enough detailed information to a membership which must make an informed choice on these most important matters.

Let us hear both sides from the proponents of both sides. Let us hear those sides in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. And let us hear them soon!

Sincerely,

Your bosses