An ugly feud between two actors unions burst into the open Monday, with the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists accusing its sister union of breaching a 26-year-old bargaining agreement, the Los Angeles Times reports.
AFTRA and the larger Screen Actors Guild have been jointly negotiating contracts under a so-called Phase 1 Agreement adopted in 1981.
But that solidarity threatened to unravel Monday when AFTRA National President Roberta Reardon blasted a decision by the SAG board to change the way votes are counted on a joint negotiating committee.
Traditionally, each union has had 13 seats on a 26-member negotiating panel, with each member having one vote.
Concerned that AFTRA had too much pull, SAG’s board voted this summer to switch to a system whereby SAG representatives would vote as a bloc, with a simple majority counting as 13 votes.
Reardon said the change breached the agreement and called on SAG to rescind its decision at a meeting Saturday.
“There is no other conclusion than that SAG has unfortunately terminated the joint bargaining agreement,” she said.
