MUMBAI: Justine Bateman has resigned from the Screen Actors Guild‘s (SAG) national board of directors, blasting the moderates who control the board and repeating her characterization of AFTRA as a “scumbag” union.
In a letter made public Friday, Bateman also expressed frustration over SAG members not sharing her views and their recent 78% approval of the feature-primetime contract.
“They rarely expressed the correct anger at AFTRA low-balling contracts over the years that affected their ability to provide for themselves,” she said. “They then ignored, seemingly, ALL the news about the migration from Old Media to New Media and recently took from the AMPTP the worst deal I have ever seen. For nothing.”
Bateman and other opponents insisted during the anti-ratification campaign that the migration of programming to digital platforms required that actors receive sweeter terms than those contained in the two-year deal.
“SAG‘s members themselves have now voted up a contract that will cause about 50% of the working members to leave the business, but now that you‘re all ‘back to work‘ you‘re probably too busy to read this,” she said in the letter.
Bateman‘s slot on the board will be filled by an appointed rep from the Hollywood Division board, then become one of the seats up for election in September. The exit of Bateman will make it more difficult for that group to regain control of the board from the moderate coalition
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