MERGER PROPAGANDA

This is the merger propaganda statement that was sent out by past president Ken Howard, Secretary-Treasurer Amy Aquino and UFS Co-Founder Ned Vaughn; who came from nowhere, presented his pack of lies and then disappeared. 

The merger was sold based on the propaganda printed in bold on this flyer. Please see my responses below these claims.

GIVE ACTORS NO LEVERAGE BY GIVING EMPLOYERS NO CHOICE

No evidence of leverage can be found in any contract negotiations since the completion of merger. What is evident is SAG-AFTRA as a joint entity negotiated the 3% lower legacy SAG rate in the TV/Theatrical contract in addition to giving away new media to the producers with no residuals for 1 year. 

MAKE IT EASIER TO QUALIFY FOR PENSION AND HEALTH BENEFITS BECAUSE OUR EARNINGS WILL NO LONGER BE DIVIDED

There is absolutely no truth to that statement insofar that merging the two entities has no effect on the pension plan and the split earnings are codified indefinitely in the pension plan. Split earnings will make it almost impossible to earn a maximum pension. 

In regard to the health plan, AFTRA and SAG's plans were merged in 2017 without proper financial analytics performed evidenced by a $3.4 million dollar embezzlement committed by an employee in AFTRA's plan and a $756,000 misappropriation/overspending of funds committed by the SAG pension trustees. I believe that SAG's plan bailed out AFTRA's plan. AFTRA's family of four plan premium was $17,260 per year. SAG's family of four plan premium was $1,620 per year. This evidences SAG's health plan was 10x's financially superior than AFTRA's. 

Under the new combined SAG-AFTRA plan the premium for the family plan is in between $2,000 and $2,300. This represents a $15,000 savings for AFTRA members. Who's paying for that? It's no wonder AFTRA was so eager to merge the plan. 

SAG P&H whistleblower, Craig Simmons stated in his complaint to the FBI that the two plans were being merged to hide the misappropriation of funds committed by some of the employees. 

PROTECT US FROM DAMAGING COMPETITION - WITH OURSELVES

We are currently still working under both the SAG and AFTRA contracts, the competition with ourselves continues.