Roberta Reardon was the final national president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Following the merger of SAG and AFTRA on March 30, 2012, she became the first co-president of SAG-AFTRA with Screen Actors Guild President Ken Howard. Reardon had served AFTRA as a board member or officer for 15 years.
In that first year as co-president, she also served as an AFL-CIO vice president, a position she had held since 2009; national chair for SAG-AFTRA contract negotiations for the Network Television Code and the Television and Radio Commercials Contracts; an executive board member of the New York State Federation of the AFL-CIO and the New York Central Labor Council; a board member of the Union Leadership Institute of the Cornell University Industrial and Labor Relations; an AFTRA Foundation Board of Directors member; and a trustee of both the AFTRA Health and Retirement Fund and The Actors Fund.
On June 19, 2012, Reardon was given the New York City Central Labor Council’s Distinguished Service Award, “in recognition of decades of service to the labor movement and her inspired leadership in merging two powerful unions into a new, unique voice for working people.”
At the end of that year, she reflected on the upcoming negotiations for the Commercials Contracts, to be done for the first time as a merged union.
“I have negotiated the commercials contract since 1997. From our very first planning sessions this year, it was clear to me that this would be a different process and an improved one. Joint bargaining prevented the two unions from developing different strategies and forced us to attempt to work in tandem — but we were still two different institutions with our own needs and agendas.”
In early 2013, she helped negotiate the Television and Radio Commercials Contracts as national chair of the SAG-AFTRA Negotiating Committee and was elected to the board of trustees of the National Labor College.
On August 15, 2013, her term as SAG-AFTRA co-president concluded with the election of Ken Howard as first sole SAG-AFTRA president. In October 2015, she was appointed New York State Department of Labor Commissioner and continues in that post today.
Photo: Kristine Walsh