Twin Cities Local General Membership Meeting Recap

The Twin Cities Local Membership Meeting was held on Monday, April 8 at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. The Jungle (an Equity house) is our favorite venue for local membership gatherings, and we thank them once again for their hospitality!

After some nosh-and-greet social time in the lobby, members moved into the auditorium, where the meeting was called to order by Twin Cities Local President Peggy O’Connell. She welcomed members to the meeting and reported on SAG-AFTRA’s continued strong presence in the Minnesota labor movement, specifically pointing to our participation in the state AFL-CIO Convention last fall. President O’Connell also urged local members to get involved in union activities, including running for office, contributing to the local e-newsletter and volunteering for committees.

Next, Executive Director Colleen Aho did a recap of national and local processes, including governance and elections updates, and other key events in the year since merger. She commented that principle goals of merger included increased strength and leverage at the bargaining table, and to be a successful member-driven union. She noted that the recently concluded, very successful national commercials negotiations are evidence of that strength. Aho echoed President O’Connell’s call for local members to become actively engaged, including running for delegate to the first SAG-AFTRA Convention, to be held in September.

Assistant Executive Director Tim Ogren reported briefly on SAG-AFTRA’s participation at the Twin Cities Actor Expo in March, and updated members on the progress of the Snowbate film incentives bill moving through the Legislature, which would be a significant increase in state film and TV production incentives (Editor’s note: Snowbate legislation passed and was signed into law on May 23. Minnesota’s film incentive has now been funded at $10 million, making Minnesota one of the 15 states with the most competitive film incentive programs in the country, according to the Minnesota Film TV Board.)

After hearing from local staff, members were treated to a presentation by Kathy Byrne from the SAG-AFTRA Chicago TV/Theatrical Contracts Department. She briefed members about the ease of working under the Student Film, Short Film and Ultra Low Budget Film contracts — all considered “learning contracts,” helping fledgling filmmakers and producers gain experience working with union actors and with the SAG-AFTRA office. Byrne related several stories about low-budget filmmakers who were originally skeptical, but in the end found it easy to work with these contracts and were thrilled to access professional acting talent for their projects.

The meeting concluded with a report from members Cathy Fuller and Jim Miller on the progress of the local’s SAG-AFTRA “Numbers” project, a legacy local AFTRA project to create a user-friendly calculator website where members, agents, producers and others can get immediate, all-inclusive cost estimates for union talent budgets for commercials and non-broadcast projects. The local members who have been working on the website project hope to see it up and running soon, and believe it may well be a useful “game-changer” tool to show local producers that using union talent is affordable.