Thoughts of Ken Howard

By Stephen Leshinski
SAG-AFTRA Philadelphia Executive Director

The first time I met Ken Howard was at the initial weekend of the G1 group, the assembly of legacy AFTRA and SAG staff and leaders tasked with building the merged union. It was the second or third day and I was in a small group discussion with Ken when he pushed his chair back, right into my knees! This was at the end of the session and the collision led to a discussion of being tall (at 6-feet-10-inches, I had a few inches on him) which led to talking basketball, which led to talking heroes we had growing up, which led back to basketball, on to some current events, and about an hour later, finally a warm goodbye. It struck me that (a) here was the president of SAG, who had a million and one things to do, spending quality time with someone he just met and (b) I couldn’t believe how quickly the time went by sharing stories.

As co-president of SAG-AFTRA and then president, I watched him preside over numerous National Board meetings and was always comforted by his ability to “call the question” and keep the meetings moving along; no easy feat in our union! I imagine that his ability to connect, share stories and share time with those around him helped form the type of relationships needed to be able to run an organization like ours, which includes making tough decisions and sometimes telling people things they didn’t necessarily want to hear.

I also heard him talk a lot about member involvement and how important it was to him to see members participating in their union — not just in elected office or on the appointed committee level, but on the organic grass-roots level as well.

There are 15 spots on our Local Board, plus one National Board representative. That’s 16 leadership positions for a local of 3,200 members. Obviously, if there were only 16 people active in this union, we wouldn’t have much of a union. That is why participation in our Conservatory, Local Broadcast Steering, NextGen and Business Relations committees are so important. These are venues for members to come together to work on common projects outside of a formal electoral process. Add in our shop stewards, our volunteers at our annual Read Across America and Labor Day events, and our various social activities, and we are well over 100-plus activists doing the work of SAG-AFTRA Philadelphia.

I believe that Ken always wanted this to be a union by the members for the members, and I hope we have achieved that here in Philadelphia. And I believe, too, that one of Ken’s most important legacies, at least for me, is the reminder that sometimes the most important business of our union happens only when the meeting is finished and the real conversations can begin.