AFTRA Tells Me To Bend Over And Grab My Ankles

I don't like AFTRA.

I didn't like them before I went down to the AFTRA office on Friday - You might say I've "drank the SAG Kool-Aid", but I truly believe they've sold the actors they supposedly work for down the river by consistently undercutting SAG on contracts - and I liked them even less afterward.

One of the few things actors like about AFTRA (And it's "one of the few things" because, after all, what struggling actor wants to work and make less than they'd make under a SAG contract?), is that "at least you don't have to pay the full initiation fee up-front" (When you book your second AFTRA job); if you don't have the money to pay the $1300 (And many actors don't), they'll take it out of your session fees.

That's what I'd heard, anyway.

Now granted, I was hoping to hold even that off for awhile, since things are "tight" (and getting tighter by the day), and I could really use the "session fee" for this job on Tuesday. But if pressed, I would have seen having to sign it over as an unpleasant, but not completely unreasonable, reality.

But no, the option to "pay as you go", so to speak, is only available on certain contracts (Like with Soap Operas, for example), and not on the type of job I'm doing - the agreement the producers of this infomercial had to sign with AFTRA stated that they will only hire AFTRA actors who are "paid in full".

No humanity. No "wiggle room". No compromise. No acknowledgment that most actors are lucky to make a couple thousand dollars from acting in any given year.

Just "pay up".

The struggles of actors are really of no importance to the producers (It's not like they couldn't find someone else to do what I'm going to do on Tuesday), and AFTRA couldn't care less - It just wants its money (As I said to them while I was at the office, feeling more than a little bitter about the whole business, "To me, you're just another big organization designed to separate me from my money").

The only person that gets hurt here is Yours Truly, who is in the crazy position of either being a struggling actor and turning down work (Because it doesn't make financial sense to accept it), or else taking the job...for an $800 loss. A loss that makes difficult times just that much more difficult.

(I'm going to net about $500 for the job; AFTRA membership and six-month dues cost me $1363.)

And for the poisoned cherry on top - I had to pay the six-month dues, but since we're at the end of a dues cycle, I'll have to pay it all over again next month.

(Cut me a break under the circumstances? Pro-rate the dues, which seems, again, like a reasonable compromise? Of course not - It's just about getting their money.)

If you sense I'm fuming here, you sense correctly. Getting work is supposed to be a happy thing for an actor - Being a professional actor is mostly about getting rejected, about being an also-ran. But every so often, you win the prize.

Who knew this prize was going to mean going $800+ into the hole?