| Joining SAG |
One of the biggest achievements that a beginning actor
can make in his career is joining the Screen Actors
Guild. Affectionately referred to as SAG, membership in
this union leads to better pay, more benefits, and quite
frankly, it shows that you are a professional. However,
unlike the other union involved with capturing motion
pictures, the American Federation of Television and
Radio Artists, or AFTRA, one needs to be asked to join
SAG. Currently there are three ways.
1. You need to be a member of a comparable
union for at least a year and hired at least once as a
principle.
2. You have to be Taft-Hartley’ed into the union.
3. You need to sign a SAG contract as a
background performer three times.
What the first part means is that you need to join
another union, like AFTRA, to become eligible to join
SAG a year after and are hired once as a principle actor
with a speaking role.
The second requires a little bit of union history. The
Taft-Hartley Act is a United States federal law greatly
restricting the activities and power of labor unions. The
Act was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and
Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. The Taft-Hartley Act
amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA;
informally the Wagner Act), which Congress passed in
1935. The term Taft-Hartley has a special meaning in
the entertainment industry. Specifically, for film and
television actors, an actor not in the union who becomes
a “principal performer” (says a line) is immediately
eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild and is covered
under the SAG contract with the production company for
30 days, at which point he or she must either join SAG
or cease working on any union productions. This allows
SAG to get around the rules forbidding closed shops by
providing a mechanism for new members to join the
union.
The third way is probably most difficult way to join the
union simply due to the fact that it takes providence,
personality, and persistence.
Since there is a lot of competition to join the union here
in LA, the best way is to try and join before you get here.
There is a final caveat for joining SAG. Printed on the
back of every member card in bold letters is Global Rule
One. This refers to the by law of the union that says that
once you join, you can only work on union projects.
Recently, Global Rule One has been applied to internet
productions. So this means that if one were to work on a
non-union project, even a student film, one could loose
their membership in the union. So make sure that
before you join, you have enough experience and
material to create a demo reel, so that way when you
are able to join you can hit the ground running.
can make in his career is joining the Screen Actors
Guild. Affectionately referred to as SAG, membership in
this union leads to better pay, more benefits, and quite
frankly, it shows that you are a professional. However,
unlike the other union involved with capturing motion
pictures, the American Federation of Television and
Radio Artists, or AFTRA, one needs to be asked to join
SAG. Currently there are three ways.
1. You need to be a member of a comparable
union for at least a year and hired at least once as a
principle.
2. You have to be Taft-Hartley’ed into the union.
3. You need to sign a SAG contract as a
background performer three times.
What the first part means is that you need to join
another union, like AFTRA, to become eligible to join
SAG a year after and are hired once as a principle actor
with a speaking role.
The second requires a little bit of union history. The
Taft-Hartley Act is a United States federal law greatly
restricting the activities and power of labor unions. The
Act was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and
Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. The Taft-Hartley Act
amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA;
informally the Wagner Act), which Congress passed in
1935. The term Taft-Hartley has a special meaning in
the entertainment industry. Specifically, for film and
television actors, an actor not in the union who becomes
a “principal performer” (says a line) is immediately
eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild and is covered
under the SAG contract with the production company for
30 days, at which point he or she must either join SAG
or cease working on any union productions. This allows
SAG to get around the rules forbidding closed shops by
providing a mechanism for new members to join the
union.
The third way is probably most difficult way to join the
union simply due to the fact that it takes providence,
personality, and persistence.
Since there is a lot of competition to join the union here
in LA, the best way is to try and join before you get here.
There is a final caveat for joining SAG. Printed on the
back of every member card in bold letters is Global Rule
One. This refers to the by law of the union that says that
once you join, you can only work on union projects.
Recently, Global Rule One has been applied to internet
productions. So this means that if one were to work on a
non-union project, even a student film, one could loose
their membership in the union. So make sure that
before you join, you have enough experience and
material to create a demo reel, so that way when you
are able to join you can hit the ground running.
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