She's appeared with Eartha Kitt at Madison Square Garden, sung duets with Neil Sedaka and performed at Carnegie Hall. And she declares, "I'm a union maid through and through."

That's Joanne Borts, a councilor for Actors' Equity Association (AEA). She's a working performer elected by her union sisters and brothers to represent chorus actors, the non-principal performers in live musicals. "The chorus has a special place in our union," she explains.

Borts joined the union in 1982, just as she was starting her career. It didn't take long to find out what a good decision that was. She got a job with a production in Florida—and suddenly, after a Sunday performance, the cast was told the show was closed and they shouldn't come to work Tuesday.

"We were a bunch of 20-year-olds stranded far from home," she recalls, "but Equity made sure we got home safely and we were paid what we were due."

Borts adds: "It's a very narcissistic business we're in, and I really don't use that in a negative way. If you're not going to be your own biggest advocate, who's going to do it? But what the unions do for this industry is to put us all on the same page. It's humbling, and it's also empowering."

She points out that actors' issues are similar to those of other workers, with priorities being:

• Health benefits―"Until this country comes up with universal health care, we're struggling with a health system that is broken."
• Salary―"Everyone wants to be a star, so sometimes people will take any pay to stand on stage."
• Workplace health and safety―"Stage effects like smoke and fog can harm your lungs and voice, and raked stages can damage a dancer's hips and back and knees."

In a union where the vast majority of members struggle to make ends meet, "we negotiate contracts to protect the minimum requirements for our members," she says.

At the same time, "even the star above the title making buckets of money needs our protection," Bort adds. Big-name actors have come to Equity because of injuries from performing on a raked (sloped) stage. "They need us as much as we need them," she says.

Borts' union activism runs in her family. Her grandfather worked at the Jewish Daily Forward, an influential Yiddish newspaper, and was vice president of the printers union's foreign language local. Borts also serves on the board of the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, a mutual aid society created by Jewish immigrants a century ago that maintains close ties with the union movement.

"I'm proud of being part of a movement that looks out for the little guy," she says. "It's the right thing to do."