SAG Vote Looks Like Referendum on Reagan

Despite denials by candidates, the bitter election of officers at the 56,000-member Screen Actors Guild that began last Friday seems to be an indirect referendum among the nation’s actors on the popularity of President Reagan, who once served as president of the union.

Mail ballots, to be counted Nov. 4, will decide not only the union presidency but also the members’ choices for one-third of the 99 members of the board of directors.

One of the candidates for the SAG presidency, Academy Award winner Patty Duke, is an outspoken opponent of Reagan’s policies, much as Ed Asner, the liberal, incumbent SAG president, has been. Asner is not seeking reelection and is backing Duke.

Her chief opponent, television actor Ed Nelson, has the strong backing of fellow Reagan supporter Charlton Heston.

A key issue in the election is Asner’s role as a political activist and his efforts to get SAG to make political endorsements, something that it has never done. Duke’s opponents assume thta she also would support more political involvement.

If SAG members elect Duke, “they will just get an Ed Asner in skirts,” complained Morgan Paull, longtime foe of Asner and chairman of the union’s conservative faction known as Actors Working for an Actor’s Guild.

The latest liberal-versus-conservative fight in the union came two weeks ago, when a majority of the union officers voted to support a nine-month, cross-country, anti-war march by 5,000 demonstrators next spring. The march is sponsored by a new organization, People Reaching Out for Peace, or Pro-Peace, whose backers include actors such as Paul Newman and Martin Sheen.

Nelson objected to the union’s endorsement of the march, saying that he and other opponents of it “got some information about the march, and we found that they are voicing anti-American policy slogans, such as ‘Down With Star Wars.’ ”

He argued that the march represents another example of efforts to “politicize” the union.

Sponsors of the event call it the “Great Peace March” and say its bipartisan goal is to force government leaders to dramatically reduce and perhaps eliminate nuclear weapons.

The march became an internal union issue not only because it was endorsed by SAG officers but because Pro-Peace filmed a public service announcement about it on Oct. 5. An estimated 2,000 marchers performed in the preview film.

To comply with the union’s rules, Pro-Peace had asked SAG to waive the minimum wage requirement because the film, and the march itself, are nonprofit operations. Members of SAG had already expressed a willingness to appear in the filmed preview without getting the union’s daily minimum wage of $333.25.

Although the SAG board endorsed the march, it was unwilling to go one step further and waive the minimum wage requirement. The march was regarded as political activity, and waivers are normally granted only for charitable, nonprofit events.

Actors supporting Pro-Peace are asking SAG officers to once again review their request for a waiver. If it is denied again, as expected, the actors will be paid the guild minimum wages, supporters said.

Normally, such an incident would have gone unnoticed. Waiver requests come up frequently and are considered routine. Also, the actors can donate their salaries to Pro-Peace anyway, so the waiver is not a critical issue.

But foes of Asner and Patty Duke, hoping to demonstrate the union’s current political activities, issued public statements of their opposition to SAG’s support of the march and to the waiver request.

Supporters of Patty Duke feel that she will be helped in her campaign for the union presidency by the harshness of the comments from Nelson, Heston and others and by efforts to make Reagan’s policies an election issue.

The battle between liberals and conservatives within the union has gone on for some time. Last December, conservatives in the union won 11 of the 12 seats up for election in the Los Angeles region. Nelson says the current election could give the anti-Asner forces a board majority.

Although Asner is not up for reelection, his policies are issues in the current election because of his strong support of Duke.

Heston last week accused Asner of being “excessively confrontational” on national political issues, even though Nelson has complained that “Asner has not been militant enough against management” on union contract issues.

Asner never hesitates to voice his often controversial opinions on almost any subject. But his four years as a union leader have been notable for their lack of confrontations with management. There have been no SAG strikes during his two terms. The last SAG strike was in 1980, before he became president. Even so, he has managed to win economic gains for actors in all four of SAG’s major contract negotiations during his tenure as union president.

His critics, however, continue to focus on Asner’s role as activist in helping other unions, ranging from the Hotel and Restaurant Workers in its strike against Las Vegas hotels last year to the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, whose members were fired by Reagan when they went on strike in 1981.

Opponents of Asner and Duke say leaders of the actors’ union should not become embroiled in the problems of other workers but instead should devote their time to the problems of actors.

Asner rightly responds that the essence of unionism is a general concern for all workers.

Millions of workers have been forced by increasingly tough management--encouraged by Reagan’s own posture toward unions--to accept wage freezes or cuts, and union membership is on the decline. If the unions don’t join forces, they will suffer more setbacks in the future.

Another SAG Change

To the delight of conservatives and the distress of liberals in the Screen Actors Guild, Kim Fellner has resigned as the union’s public relations director to become executive director of the National Writers Union in New York.

Fellner has been credited for her role in enthusiastically helping to inspire the liberal policies of outgoing SAG President Ed Asner.

Conservatives in the union had frequently called for her resignation or dismissal, contending that she was as much responsible for the liberal leanings of the union as Asner himself.

In an unusual display of agreement, however, the SAG boards of directors in both Hollywood and New York voted unanimously last week to name the far less controversial Mark Locher as her successor.

Locher has been working with SAG since 1981, when he was appointed associate editor of the union’s publications.

Brock to Address AFL

Secretary of Labor William E. Brock III will address the national AFL-CIO convention in Anaheim on Oct. 29.

His predecessor, Raymond J. Donovan, who resigned March 15 after a New York state judge refused to dismiss pending charges of larceny and fraud against him, had been ostracized by the national labor federation.

The AFL-CIO demonstrated its mistrust of Donovan by inviting him to speak at only one of its conventions during his four years in office.

While Brock has many differences with AFL-CIO leaders, they have frequently indicated their respect for his integrity.

While he is not going to persuade them to back Reagan policies, the fact that he has accepted their invitation marks a return to the traditional AFL-CIO policy of inviting all secretaries of labor to attend their conventions, regardless of the administration in power.

DeSilva Fund Created

Union officials joined management leaders Monday at a luncheon to create a special scholarship fund in memory of Joseph T. DeSilva, who died last May 21.

DeSilva headed the AFL-CIO Retail Clerks Local 770 here for 36 years until his retirement in 1973.

DeSilva gained a national reputation for, among other things, his pioneering work in winning union contracts that for the first time included such fringe benefits as psychiatric and dental care.