A Screen Actors Guild moderate, Ken Howard was elected guild president with 12,895 votes in September -- 31 percent more than the next closest challenger, activist coalition candidate Anne-Marie Johnson. But he walks a fine line, not wanting to appear soft at the negotiating table while billing himself as a unifying presence who wishes to combine forces with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, get along better with constituents like the Directors Guild of America, and enjoy a less vitriolic, rhetorical relationship with management in general.
TheWrap talked to Howard about SAG's Hatfields and McCoys, what you need if there's a strike and "empathy" with management.
You seem to have developed a useful empathy with management ...
I don't call it empathy. It’s always a battle to go up against management, it just doesn’t help to call them the enemy. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to know what their weaponry is and what they’re afraid of.
I don't call it empathy. It’s always a battle to go up against management, it just doesn’t help to call them the enemy. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to know what their weaponry is and what they’re afraid of.
One of the first things in law school they teach you is to be able to present the other side’s case better than they can. It’s about having a sense of how far management can go. The best agent I ever had, he knew there was a breaking point, when a deal was as good as it was ever going to get.
You've come out strongly in favor of a merger with AFTRA. Why?
One of the problems with management is -- and I would be this way, too, if I were in their position -- they would like nothing better than to play one against the other. This has been going on forever. Imagine if you were a member of the Teamsters, and there was another smaller group that could supply trucks or whatever. That’s the end of the Teamster’s power.
One of the problems with management is -- and I would be this way, too, if I were in their position -- they would like nothing better than to play one against the other. This has been going on forever. Imagine if you were a member of the Teamsters, and there was another smaller group that could supply trucks or whatever. That’s the end of the Teamster’s power.
So it would be very good to put all the actors under one tent; it would certainly provide us with more power at the bargaining table. We can’t be turned against each other that way.
There have been two previously unsuccessful attempts to combine these unions. What makes you think it will happen this time?
The merger will happen eventually -- it’s in our interest financially, and it has been for some time.
The merger will happen eventually -- it’s in our interest financially, and it has been for some time.
Look, management is looking to fill a lot of air time, and they’ll go any which way possible. For us to divide up makes us vulnerable. I am not interested in leading any kind of strike, but in any kind of negotiation, if a strike does happen, you have to be sure it’s something that’s going to shut things down. And we’re not in that situation right now.
AFTRA president Roberta Reardon insists that no merger will happen unless the entire body of her organization -- which includes folks like newscasters -- is included. That’s hamstrung earlier merger attempts. How do you feel about this?
I always felt there was no gray area. If there is a merger, (dividing AFTRA) was never anything I considered as possible.
I always felt there was no gray area. If there is a merger, (dividing AFTRA) was never anything I considered as possible.
