SAG-AFTRA National President Ken Howard officially opened the union's national convention yesterday, in the most important governance event since the merger of SAG and AFTRA. “What we have created today is an overwhelming and moving tribute to the power of this union to improve the lives of its members all across the country,” he said. “When we work together, we are a powerful voice. When we work together, we are proud and strong. When we work together, we are an unstoppable force that diligently and selflessly works to empower and strengthen the union and our fellow members. We are taking the first, early steps on a remarkable journey. There will only ever be one first SAG-AFTRA convention.”

Ken Howard was reelected SAG-AFTRA president and Amy Aquino won reelection as secretary treasurer. The pair had served as co-president and co-secretary-treasurer following the 2012 merger of SAG and AFTRA and prior to that, two terms as SAG’s top leaders.

What's choreographer Marty Kudelka's favorite part of being on tour? He doesn't have to make his bed every morning.

Kudelka, who has worked with Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake, is part of a group of performers, including singers, dancers and choreographers, who regularly tour with big name acts as part of their jobs. While many performers have a voice on the job when they work in music videos or on TV and film, they do not have the union contract for their tour work. This affects everything, from access to health insurance to retirement benefits and safety on the job. 

Members of Pink Floyd—Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason—are calling out Internet radio company Pandora to cease sending out a misleading email that's asking musicians to support a campaign they say is really intended to cut musicians’ Internet royalties by 85%.

It's hard to argue with fairness. Pointing out the injustices for dancers in the music video industry is exactly how choreographer and chair of the Dancers' Alliance Galen Hooks found momentum around gaining basic workplace safety and benefits. Something as simple as a water break during an eight-hour video shoot (sometimes in the desert) and access to chairs were workplace safety and health basics  dancers simply did not have. But that all changed when the power of collective action spread across the dancer community, which often was hard to organize because of the nature of the business: multiple employers, different jobs every day and competition from fellow dancers who'll take any job (even if it's unpaid).

While the world’s eyes Sunday night were focused on the actors, video clips and red carpet gowns at the 79th Academy Awards show, their ears were being treated to melodies and rhythms—both in the Oscar-winning films and live broadcast—of the members of Professional Musicians/AFM Local 47.

Local 47 members composed and performed on the musical scores of 10 films that received 39 Oscar nominations and won 10 Oscars.

In New Orleans this Super Bowl week, there are plenty of fans sporting 49ers' red and gold caps and jerseys and Ravens' purple and black gear. But there also are thousands of union members—including many from unions in the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO (GNO)—who proudly display their union label and are making the game possible and the fan experience in the Crescent City run smoothly.

The red carpet and swanky evening wear added a dash of Hollywood drama to solidarity as members of SAG-AFTRA came together last night to hand out top prizes for performances at the 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards held at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center.

This is a cross-post by Labor Lou. 

A neighborhood on the eastern edge of the L.A. basin and shorthand for the movie and television industries, Hollywood had its own city charter for fewer than 10 years before being annexed by Los Angeles in 1910. By joining L.A., it gained access to the water supply then beginning to flow by aqueduct from the Owens Valley, 233 miles to the north.

D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille and Charlie Chaplin filmed there but now, in fact, studios and related businesses are situated throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with particular concentrations in Culver City, Burbank, the San Fernando Valley and—of course—the part of town known as Hollywood.

This is a cross-post from Labor's Edge by Rebecca Band of the California Labor Federation.

For decades, performers have been coming together in unions to bargain for fair protections and decent working conditions. And this year, actors and performers took their collective voice to the next level by voting overwhelmingly to merge the two biggest entertainment and media industry unions—Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)—into one big union, SAG-AFTRA. Actress Gabrielle Carteris, who starred as Andrea Zuckerman on the original series Beverly Hills, 90210, has been actively involved with the merger for nearly two years, a process which she describes as “exciting, challenging, inspiring and historic.” Carteris spoke with Labor's Edge for a Q and A on the merger and her involvement in the labor movement.