A Note From Your National Board Member

By Mary McDonald-Lewis

Sisters and brothers, in thinking about writing you, I find several topics clamoring for priority. There is your health and well-being: I hope you continue to turn to the resources available to you for help during this trying time: The Actors Fund, and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Disaster Relief Fund. A list of additional organizations is here.

Your professional health is important, too, and to that end, SAG-AFTRA and the Foundation have both built valuable curricula for online learning. 

There is also the health of the union. Nationally, there have been three waves of layoffs. The union now serves its 160,000 members with a significantly reduced staff, steadfastly continuing to focus its mission of organizing work, negotiating strong wages and working conditions, fighting for our health and pension benefits, expanding opportunities for work and enforcing our contracts. It has negotiated two contracts in the middle of this pandemic, and both were successes: our TV/Theatrical contract and the animation contract (a negotiation committee I serve upon). 

Locally, we’ve been affected as well, with a staff reduction and oversight of our local coming from Interim Local Executive Director Sean Taylor in San Francisco, Senior Business Representative Chris Comte in Seattle and, managing membership, Maureen O’Brien from the Missouri Valley Local. Good news here is, we will soon have a broadcast rep joining us to work with our broadcast members in the Pacific Northwest. I have worked alongside both Sean and Maureen for many years, and I can tell you, despite these changes, we are in great hands. “We’ll get through this” is your Local Board’s motto, and we will.

And a key factor there is you.

Portland is known throughout the country as one of the most active locals in the union. We are smart, savvy, trained and great in front of the camera, behind the mic, and in the studio. Whether we are stunt folks, dancers, singers or field reporters, we rock! 

We face unprecedented times, however, so it’s going to take effort to remain dedicated, united and connected, now and for the foreseeable future. As your National Board member, I continue to represent our needs to national and to my fellow board members from across the country. Your local president, Michelle Damis, works for you every day with staff, the film commission, the city film officials and more. Your board’s work continues on Zoom and with letters, phone calls, outreach and committee work.

You are a part of this team too, and here’s how you can help: Don’t work off the card. Talk to your friends about this. Stand with your sisters and brothers here, defending our union until better times come — and they will. Take care of yourself, your family, your animals. Ask for help, and offer it when you can. 

And let us know when you’re in a jam, please. We are standing by to support our members. But we have to hear from you to do so. Please promise me: As the months go on and you become afraid, get tired, grow sad, feel isolated or worried about money, let us know. We will do all we can to help. 

This is what unions do. This is what your card promises you, and why, above all, we must protect the card.

We’ll get through this. With our remarkable staff, with you, we’ll get through this and get back to work.

As I write this, we are waiting to hear who our next president will be. As with every presidential election, this brings with it as many opportunities as it does challenges. In this time of instability, our shared commitment to democracy is much the same as faith in our union: We are stronger together. United, we put our shoulders to the wheel of the American experiment, and it endures.