Justine Bateman takes The Gloves Off

Click here to see her post on the UH Union Blog.

Comments

[Dennis Wilson]

Yeah! Why the fuck did we cave?

[Dennis Wilson]

Yeah! Why the fuck did we cave?

[Tanja Barnes]

In Justine's intro, she explains why the differences between SAG and AFTRA. Then she goes on to say "pretty simple".

Not to me.

As a dual cardholder, I just don't grok why we pay two separate dues to two separate unions to work as an actor. Every other artist and creator in this town seems platform agnostic. I mean, the writers have one guild and the directors have one guild. That seems pretty simple to me. The rest is all b.s.

I have other issues with AFTRA. Even though our dues pay for their offices, it seems nobody's working there because the organization failed to respond to my private communications I sent via their website with some concerns I had. So I had to publicly blog about it. Which got the attention of Mr. John Hinrichs, the National Director of Communications for AFTRA. A prompt response was done in which he left a comment and you can check it out on my blog at brave-new-media.blogspot.com (run a search for AFTRA in the upper left corner). Though I appreciate the effort, it's unfortunate that I had to call them out that way in the first place.

Other than that, I don't have much else to say about AFTRA. However, I can say without a doubt that Justine absolutely RULES! I had a surprising opportunity to interview her for my podcast. I say surprising because I thought I was going to be interviewing somebody else. She's got a great deal to say about new media and it's worth a listen on my podcast available at StrikeChronicles.com (run a search for Justine Bateman in the upper left corner)

BTW. I would have embedded the links, but it looks like your HTML markup is disabled in this blog. :(

[Scott Ellington]

I already like this meeting place, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to isolate comments for Justine's statement in segregated sections of the site. We wind up talking past one another even more than in UHv1.0.

-----

Hey Scott -

Thanks for the input, but I'm not sure what you mean about isolating comments for Justine's statement? Every post gets a comments section underneath. And anyone is free to start a discussion on pretty much any Hollywood union-related topic they want in the Forum. I certainly agree her statement should be treated like anyone else's. I'm just not sure why you think it's been treated differently. Let me know, and we'll fix it. Thanks.

Tom

[NotA MeFirster]

Justine has her head up her ass. All she offers is the same tired MeFirst spew based on the same nonsense that we've been hearing for the past four years.

MeFirst and Bateman have no solutions and, worse still, no integrity. They know that the crap their passing around about poaching and undercutting is complete nonsense, but they keep it up, in hopes of whipping up the psycho crew frenzy that has given them control of the union machinery.

It's supposed to be UNITED Hollywood. But for them, it's all a matter of the one true religion.

Assholes.

[Scott Ellington]

Tom,
I'm not suggesting that this post has been singled out for special treatment. It's rather that there are 10 comments if you access this post via the Union Forum and 5 different comments if you come in from the Main Page.

---/-------Scott -

I get it. And you're right. I'm cross-posting at guest to begin differentiating the union site from the more bus focused main site. Next time I'll turn off comments on one when I do that.

Tom

[Scott Ellington]

Well, okay then.

[TRUTH-SPEAKS]

YOU ARE ALL WRONG!!! ALL UNIONS MUST GO!!! SAVE OUR INDUSTRY, GET RID OF ALL UNION CONTROLLED MONOPLOLIES NOW...BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!! FREE TRADE, THE RIGHT TO WORK, FOR WHOMEVER, HOWEVER, IN WHAT MEDIUM WE WISH...IS THE ONLY RIGHT WE SHOULD FIGHT FOR!!! YOU ARE ALL BRAINWASHED SHEEP!!! FOLLOWING AN OLD MAFIA BASED SYSTEM THAT IS A CANCEROUS GROWTH-DESTROYING THIS INDUSTRY!!!

[TRUTH-SPEAKS]

MONOPOLIES!!!! IN ANY FORM ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! WHO SHOULD TELL US WHAT TO DO WITH OUR TALENT??? HOW TO USE IT??? FOR WHOM??? ECT. IN 1930 OUR RIGHT WERE TAKEN AWAY.......WE HAVE YET TO FREE OURSELVES OF THIS ''UNION'' OPPRESSION!!!

[TRUTH-SPEAKS]

ALL UNIONS CONTROLLING OUR CAREERS, MONEY, LIVES...MUST GO.
FREE TRADE.......RIGHT TO WORK......... FREE YOUR MIND, FREE OUR INDUSTRY OF 1930'S MINDSETS!!!!! QUIT ALL UNIONS NOW........HIRE A GOOD CONTRACT ATTORNEY....... THINK FOR YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!