The Union Advantage in 140 Characters or Less: Union Members Tweet in Support of Labor

The Union Advantage in 140 Characters or Less: Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria, CSI: NY's Hill Harper, Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett, Award-Winning Broadcaster Bob Butler, Breaking Bad's R.J. Mitte, and Other Celebs Tweet for Unions During First Ever Labor Day Tweet-a-Thon

Actors’ Equity, AFTRA, Screen Actors Guild Members and Major League Baseball Players among the Labor Day Tweeters!

Los Angeles (September 3, 2010) - This Labor Day, people who work in the sports, entertainment and news media industries—baseball players, actors, recording artists, Broadway performers, broadcasters and more—are coming together on Twitter to celebrate unions. With Cy Young, Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony and Pulitzer awards and nominations under their belts, they all have one thing in common: they’re union members.

And so this Labor Day weekend, union members across the entertainment, sports, and news media industries are uniting with a common purpose—to tweet about the advantages of being a #unionmember for them and for workers in each sector of the economy, all in 140 characters or less.

Just a few of those participating this year include Tampa Bay third baseman Evan Longoria, Minnesota outfielder Michael Cuddyer, Texas pitcher C.J. Wilson, CSI: NY star Hill Harper, Breaking Bad star R.J. Mitte, grammy winning Foo Fighters' lead guitarist Chris Shiflett, award-winning broadcast journalist and reporter for KCBS in San Francisco Bob Butler, as well as Actors’ Equity Association members from across the country.

The Labor Day Tweet-a-Thon is a joint project of workers’ rights group American Rights at Work, the country’s leading entertainment unions, Actors’ Equity, AFTRA, and Screen Actors Guild, and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Labor Day is not a just a day to commemorate the protections, rights, and opportunities that labor unions and workers’ rights advocates have achieved in years past.  It’s a day to broadcast the critical role unions play today for all workers–in showbiz–and in every industry.

Says AFTRA member and broadcaster Bob Butler, “Being a union member takes the guesswork out of how I'm going to live in retirement.”

For more information visit http://www.unionmember.org. Throughout Labor Day weekend the site will display a round-up of  tweets from union members and supporters who use the #unionmember hashtag.

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Contacts:    

Pamela Greenwalt
Screen Actors Guild
(323) 440-2892
pgreenwalt@sag.org
twitter.com/SAGnews

Chris Dahl
MLBPA
(212) 826-0808
chrisd@mlbpa.org
twitter.com/mlb_players

Doug Pennington
American Rights at Work
(202) 822-2127 x118
(202) 215-6350 (cell)
dpennington@americanrightsatwork.org
twitter.com/morfaleji

Christopher de Haan
AFTRA
(323) 634-8203
cdehaan@aftra.com
twitter.com/AFTRA

Maria Somma
Actors’ Equity
(212) 869-8530 x425
(917) 560-3488 (cell)
msomma@actorsequity.org