Tag Archives: unite for strength

Kicking Off Election Season (or Time To Be Busy With Campaigning)

Posted on July 14, 2021 | Comments Off on Kicking Off Election Season (or Time To Be Busy With Campaigning)

I’ve gone through SAG-AFTRA election season 3 times in the past. And my involvement during election season has changed and increased over each election. It’s a stressful time for so many of us, but it’s also very worth it. I am passionate about the direction my union is going and making sure that we have the best union possible for all members. And while I hope that I will be elected to the position or positions I’m running for, I also know the importance of getting others who have similar mindsets elected too. And that’s why I’m so happy to be with the Unite For Strength slate.

Things are only getting started with this election season. We have not announced our full slate just yet, but we will be doing so soon. And that’s when I’ll share more about what I’m running for. But we have announced our candidates for National President and National Secretary-Treasurer. And I’m so excited about those candidates as well as the ones we haven’t announced just yet. I love when I discover other members who have a similar passion for union service as I do and I also love to see people move into more and more leadership positions. I know that one day, my group of members will be the leaders of the union and it’s amazing to see that growth happen in front of my eyes. I don’t know how far in union leadership I personally want to go into, but I don’t think there will be a time that I’m a member of SAG-AFTRA and not wanting to be a part of union service in one way or another. Before my first election, I never imagined doing this. Now, I can’t imagine my life without it.

I am doing the social media work for my slate again, just like I have before. I can’t share a ton of information just yet, but I can’t wait until we announce more and I start posting more. Of course, this can be a bit stressful too, but it’s worth it just like election season is. And even though I know there can be a lot of negativity on social media, especially when it comes to politics and elections, I usually see more positive things online than negative which helps a lot.

Normally during election season, both my slate as well as the other slate campaign in similar ways and they are typically done in person. We pass out information as people are walking into different in-person union events. This year, things will be different. Most of the events that we would be campaigning at are not happening. The main one that I used to campaign at, the Film Society screenings, have not returned yet and I don’t think anyone knows when the next Film Society season would be. I know that everyone is trying to find new ways to campaign and I’m sure I will be doing a lot of it just as I do with campaigning before. And this isn’t the first time we’ve had to do some sort of campaigning without in-person events. We did this for the last contract. And while I will miss these opportunities to campaign in person and meet new people, I know that future election seasons will have that chance when things are safer for us all.

I know the next few months, my life will be a bit crazy and busy with election season, but I’m also very excited about that. I will still try to find ways to be social outside of union stuff because I want to get more of my life back. But having election season here is another thing that feels like the old normal to me, so I’m embracing that feeling. And hopefully I will have some exciting news once all the votes are counted!

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Default ThumbnailIt’s Almost Election Season! (or Planning For My Summer) Default ThumbnailElection Campaigning (or Being A Captain And Getting Out There) Default ThumbnailThe Official Start To Election Season (or I Can Finally Share Some Things I’ve Been Working On) Default ThumbnailElection Season Time (or Being A Part Of Unite For Strength) Default ThumbnailLate Night Election Results (or All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go) Default ThumbnailThe End Of The Election (or Actors Please Remember To Vote)

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Celebrating A New Contract (or Feeling Good About This Accomplishment)

Posted on July 24, 2020 | Comments Off on Celebrating A New Contract (or Feeling Good About This Accomplishment)

I wrote about my union contract ratification vote before. This is something we do every 3 years for our TV/Theatrical contract (we have ratification votes on contracts every 3 years, but they happen often since we have so many contracts). But this time, it felt different. I don’t know why it got as contentious as it did, but it was a very odd feeling. I know that there are some people who had heard misinformation about the contract (for example, hearing that we lost all minimums on the contract when it was only for a very small and specific category), so some people were being very vocal against the contract and then changed their minds when they looked more into it.

And educating members so they would look more into it was something I took seriously. Even though I was for the contract, that didn’t mean I didn’t look into it and investigate every part of it. There were parts that I didn’t love as much as others and there were a few things that I wish we could have gotten more into the contract. But overall, it was an amazing contract. We are really working toward putting residuals in things that are more common, like streaming. And we got a lot of protections on set for actors who are doing more vulnerable scenes like nudity or simulated sex. And whenever I heard a member saying they were voting no for a reason that wasn’t factual, I gave them the facts. I said that I understood if they still wanted to vote no, but I wanted them to make that choice on what the contract really said and not the misinformation.

I’ve never been this involved in a contract ratification vote before. And part of that is due to my work with running our social media. Every day, multiple times a day, I would check Twitter and Instagram to see what others were posting about the contract. There were specific hashtags I checked constantly. I wanted to share posts about people excited about the contract or answer questions that some people might have had. But that also meant I would be seeing the posts that were against the contract or were negative. And seeing those every day wasn’t easy. But I tried to keep my focus on the positive ones.

The ratification vote was due on Wednesday, and we all were working hard up until the last minute. Since the voting was done online, we didn’t want to miss a minute to make sure that members were making an educated vote. Of course, I was hoping they would vote to approve, but I also wanted everyone to be educated even if that meant they voted no. And when voting was done, we really had no clue if it would pass or not.

It felt like we waited a long time for the results to come in. I was on a Zoom call with some of my friends from the union about 2 hours after the end of the vote and we were still waiting to hear what happened. And maybe 2 1/2 hours after the end of the vote, we finally saw the press release with the results.

The contract passed! It was 74.22% to 25.78%. And while that was exciting, what I was most excited about was the number of members who voted. In the past, it’s usually between 15-16% of the membership that votes. That number is really low and we have worked hard to try to get more members to be involved and to vote. And this time, we had about 27% of the membership voting! Yes, I know that number is still really low and 2/3rds of the membership did not participate, but we still almost doubled what we typically have. As much as I would have liked to have over 50% participating, this is a good step toward that and hopefully, we will be there in the future.

After I found out the contract passed, I was a bit of an emotional wreck. I worked harder on this vote than I have on any other. I was very involved and very aware of what both sides were saying. I didn’t feel certain it would pass even though I was extremely hopeful that it would. And this wasn’t just my effort. Hundreds of people worked hard to make this happen. I am so grateful to everyone who got the message out and voted. This was huge. And I am so proud of what we as a union accomplished.

Now, we just have to hope that we can reopen things soon so we can start working on this contract. I hope that I have a chance to do that soon. We worked hard for this, and I can’t wait to get to use it!

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Another Successful Livestream (or Fixing Issues And Working On A System)

Posted on June 25, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Successful Livestream (or Fixing Issues And Working On A System)

After the first You Are The Union livestream, Amir and I knew we had room to improve. It went really well, but not everything that we were hoping for happened. Mainly, we had technical issues with trying to get the livestream up on YouTube at the same time. And then after we were not able to save it so we could have a replay. We want these livestreams to be available at any time, so we knew we had to work on fixing it.

Once we had our next one scheduled, we took extra time to make sure we were clear on the process of how to make the livestream work. We did multiple test runs and made a checklist of every step that we have to take each time to make sure that it works. It’s not the easiest process, but it’s worth it to make it happen so we are willing to do the work. Plus, I have a feeling that as we do these more often, they will get easier and easier for us to set up.

We also wanted to make sure that things just ran smoothly and easily once the livestream was started. This mainly was stuff I needed to be able to do. Since Amir is hosting live, I want to run all the behind the scenes stuff so he doesn’t have to think about it. We tried a system of me texting him the questions from the guests the first time, and that didn’t exactly work. This time, we decided on a Google Doc where I could change the list of questions if we were getting a lot about the same topic or if something needed to be next instead of another question. So on my end, I needed to have a lot of windows open to keep it all together. I had the Google Doc with our questions, the Zoom window with the Zoom chat and participant lists popped out, the YouTube page to make sure the video was still streaming there, and the YouTube chat popped out. This is what my screen ended up looking like while we ran the second livestream.

It was a bit crazy, but it really worked for me in the end. I did switch between windows a lot, but it was easy enough to monitor everything at once. I monitored the chats on Zoom and YouTube to pull questions, looked at the participant list to see our Waiting Room, and tracked any raised hands in Zoom if someone wanted to ask a question on video. The first livestream, we didn’t have many people interested in asking questions on video so we debated removing that option. But this time, more people wanted to do that so I’m glad we allowed for both video and text questions.

Our second livestream was about diversity, inclusion, and Black Lives Matter. We had Tiffany Yvonne Cox and Michelle Hurd as our guests and it was so incredible. I was thrilled that the livestream went so much better than the first one did, but I was even more thrilled about the conversation that happened during it. This was exactly what we hoped would happen and I’m so glad that our audience seemed to feel the same way.

And because we were able to run everything smoothly this time, we also were able to create a replay of the livestream. The replay is pretty much the entire livestream, we just edited 1 minute at the beginning and 1 minute in the end when we were still getting things set up. But all of the discussion, questions, and conversation was kept in. We didn’t want to censor or edit our guests in any way, and I’m glad we were able to keep the full thing up for anyone to watch at any time.

I’m so proud of this livestream. I was crying at times while it happened because this is exactly what Amir and I dreamed of creating. And we never thought we would have exactly what we wanted by the second livestream. We thought we might have some more things to work through. But I think all of our practice runs and preparation paid off and helped us make all the improvements we were looking to make.

We are working on planning our next one. We have had a bit of a delay due to some timing issues, but we are hopeful we will have another one happening in a week. And we have a few topics in our lineup that we are considering, so we should be creating a nice schedule over the next few months. And we do want to do another one on diversity because we know this is not a one and done topic. This is an evolving discussion and we want to create a space for people to discuss it and get answers. That is so important and being able to provide it makes me so happy.

I’m still so excited that I have helped to create this livestream and how quickly it has been embraced by so many people. So many of the viewers were people who are not currently involved in union service and it was a great way to get to meet new people and to hear what they are hoping to see from the union. And we have a few people who have expressed interest in union service and asking what steps they can do. That is amazing and not something I expected. But like I’ve always said, all I want to do is to educate other union members and to make sure they understand what is going on. And maybe that does mean getting more people involved in union service so they are an active participant and able to help educate others in their social circles.

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A Fun Union Hangout (or Hopefully This Is The Start Of A New Regular Thing)

Posted on January 14, 2020 | Comments Off on A Fun Union Hangout (or Hopefully This Is The Start Of A New Regular Thing)

So much of my work with Unite For Strength has to do with serious things. A lot of my work is related to our election or different negotiations. And my year-round work with them is making sure our social media is a good source of information. That’s slightly less serious, but it’s still more about the business side of union service and not the creative or entertaining sides of it. I don’t mind that because I have realized how important the serious and business sides are, but I have wanted to get to know my fellow slate members in a more fun way.

And this past weekend, I finally got that chance. We had a casual get together for friends and supporters of Unite For Strength. We did have some business that ended up being discussed, but this wasn’t about preparing for an election or a contract negotiation. It was more about getting to know each other and seeing what we are interested in doing with our union service and what concerns we might have.

Having hangouts like this have been discussed among the slate for a while. I know that during election season we just don’t have the time or ability to plan things. And in the past, there has been a lot of focus on the serious work that needs to be done after people are elected. But now, I think we finally have the ability to do some more fun stuff as a group. There are more people who are leaders within the slate (technically I’m one of the newer leaders even if I don’t think of myself that way). So having more people to handle things means that people aren’t getting overwhelmed. We don’t have a specific person who is going to focus on fun events, but at least everyone has a bit more time to be able to contribute.

And I’m so excited to have more of these events because I want to bring friends with me to them. A huge thing that I am passionate about in the union is educating my fellow members. And I know this is something that almost all of us in the slate believe in doing. But getting people to attend official union events can seem intimidating. I’ve been trying to get people to join me as an observer for a local board meeting and that’s a struggle. Even though all you do there is sit and watch, it’s scary. And I get that. I was nervous about being an observer too. But now that I’ve done it, I see how silly my fear was.

But it’s hard to tell other people not to be scared if they haven’t gone before. So having some fun events where I know informed people will be there is a good option. It won’t be the same as an official union event, but it can be a way to ease into things or meet people who might be at the union events so that it won’t feel like you won’t know anyone there. Plus, I love everyone who is a part of my slate. These people are some of the most inspirational and informed actors I know and I would love for my friends to get to know them too. I feel so lucky that these people are my peers and some of them have also become my friends. I always seem to have pinch-me moments when I’m with them.

We don’t have our next casual hangout for Unite For Strength planned just yet, but seeing the response from others at the one we had has motivated me to make sure that we get a few planned. I want to keep this going because it’s also a great reminder for us to make sure that we are involved throughout the year and not just during elections. And it helps us get to know each other better so it’s not as odd to reach out to someone to ask for help or get a question answered. Being familiar with each other can only benefit us when we have to work hard together.

I hope that I will be writing about another event that we have as a slate soon. But even if it takes us a while to figure out things, I’m just glad that I got to spend an awesome afternoon with all of these amazing union members and that I got to do more with my slate that isn’t as serious.

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The Official Start To Election Season (or I Can Finally Share Some Things I’ve Been Working On)

Posted on May 17, 2019 | 2 comments

The SAG-AFTRA election season has finally started for me and my slate! I haven’t been able to put in my petition for delegate yet, but that’s just a technicality. I will be running again and I’m so happy that I will be a part of the Unite for Strength slate again. I love what this slate stands for and the work we have done so far. I really believe in what we are doing and hope that we can continue to do the work we have been doing.

I’ve been able to get a little more involved each election cycle. The first election, I ran as a delegate and while I did do some campaign work I really didn’t do much. The second election I did that plus I helped to run some of the leafletting events. It wasn’t a ton of extra work, but it was more than I had done before and I loved getting to do more and understand the election more than I did before. And for my third election, I’m even more involved!

This time, I’m doing everything that I did before and I’m also helping to run the social media pages for Unite for Strength! It’s been something I’ve been doing for a little while, but now that election season has officially started there is a lot more work to do. I’m really loving helping with social media and making sure that we are sharing important information regarding the election, the campaign, and union matters. I love making our twitter feed a great source of news and information since educating other members is a passion of mine. I’ve also been a part of the design ideas that we’ve been using and I love getting to play with that side of my creativity.

But the look of our campaign is really because of my amazing friend Robert. He is an actor and also a graphic designer and he has worked hard and creating amazing graphics for us to use. We got to share one yesterday when we announced that Gabrielle Carteris will be running for re-election as SAG-AFTRA president.

He has created some amazing art for us to use this election season and I’m excited to get to keep posting them online as we get closer to the election. Plus, getting to work on this campaign with several of my friends makes it more fun. It can be (and I’m sure will be) a very stressful time that can have a lot of negativity. But being surrounded by my friends and working hard on a goal with them hopefully will make it a bit better.

This work has been something I’ve been working on for a few weeks, but primarily over the past week. It’s been taking up a lot of my time, but it’s for something I enjoy so I don’t mind. It’s been a good distraction when I’m not feeling my best because everything I’ve been doing has been encouraging and motivating. I always say how I want to be more involved in the union and this is such a great way for me to do this. I know that not everyone I know agrees with my slate or will be voting for it, but that’s to be expected. I just have to keep working with people that I believe in and know that I’m with a slate that does support the same issues I am passionate about. Being involved is so important and for many people that just means voting and making sure their voice is heard in the union. For me, I’m lucky to get to do even more than that.

I’ve been able to be enthusiastic about the work the slate has been doing as well as what I have had the chance to help with. I just haven’t been able to share it that much since many things have been confidential until this week. And there are still more things that will be shared for the next few months when we can. I’m hoping that my enthusiasm about this will be able to continue through election season and beyond. And I hope that others will get just as excited as I am about all of this.

For anyone who is a member of SAG-AFTRA and has questions about Unite for Strength, please feel free to reach out to me. If I can’t answer something, I can connect you to someone who can. And whether or not you are a union member, if you would like to help the slate we are accepting donations for the campaign. It is not cheap to run a campaign (it costs money to have campaign materials and to get it out to the membership). While everyone who is a part of the slate are all contributing, any extra help is always appreciated. I hope many of you will support me and Unite for Strength during this election season and I can’t wait to tell you more about things as I can share them!

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