Actors rally to show support for SAG

Several hundred actors rallied outside the headquarters of the Screen Actors Guild on Monday to support their leaders and blast a contract with the Hollywood studios recently negotiated by the smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

SAG President Alan Rosenberg and Executive Director Doug Allen alternately took jabs at AFTRA’s agreement, saying it offered paltry pay increases and failed to meet such key demands as ensuring that all shows created for the Web are covered under union contracts.

The federation “abandoned us to make their own deal to the detriment of actors,” said Rosenberg, as the assembled actors chanted, “Vote no!”

AFTRA President Roberta Reardon fired back. “We’re proud of what we accomplished. If that’s not good enough for SAG, then we invite them to go back to the table and bargain,” Reardon said in an interview.

The rally outside SAG’s headquarters in the Mid-Wilshire district kicks off a risky campaign by guild leaders to urge 44,000 members who belong to both unions to vote down AFTRA’s contract, which was approved Friday by the union’s directors.

SAG leaders risk embarrassing themselves if they can’t defeat AFTRA’s contract or win meaningful new concessions from the studios. The SAG campaign already has angered some moderates within the guild.

Although the odds of success are long, SAG leaders appear to be using the AFTRA accord as a way to galvanize members and muster support for guild negotiators as they enter the final stretches of delicate contract talks that continued Monday. The actors’ contract expires June 30.

The two-hour protest drew a smaller crowd than the rousing marches organized last year by the Writers Guild of America -- whose leaders spoke at SAG’s Monday rally -- and only a handful of household-name actors. Among them was former SAG President Ed Asner.

“Everything we stand for is being chipped away by AFTRA,” he said. “They deserve to be humbled.”

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richard.verrier@latimes.com