SAG, Federal Case Of The Guild's National Election Battle.

Five members of the Screen Actors Guild are hoping to make a federal case of the guild's national election battle.

The group, including two board members and one national officer, filed a formal complaint with the Department of Labor on Monday, urging the department to suspend the controversial rerun of the SAG national election and conduct its own investigation.

Amid the myriad charges lodged in the 12-page filing, a copy of which was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, are four key ones:

• The committee that decided to rerun the election did not have authority to take such an action;
• The committee ruling was biased and politically motivated;
• The factors mentioned in the committee's decision to vote again in no way affected the outcome of the election; and
• The committee attempted to manipulate the election process to "its own desired ends."

Monday's filing coincided with a national board meeting, which was spent debating solutions to SAG's election headache.

"Without the intervention of the DOL, a new election will be held which will jeopardize the legitimate standing of the duly elected officers and wreak havoc on an organization already in internal conflict and crisis," the complaint states.

The aggressive move to involve the DOL in SAG's election mess was made by SAG first vp Mike Farrell, Chicago branch president Lisa Lewis, board member Jane Beard and members John Fleming and Paul Petersen, who all signed on. Within the complaint submitted to the DOL's Los Angeles office was the assertion that all internal remedies to resolve the charges had been exhausted, which is required before a DOL investigation can take place.

Department of Labor district director Jeffrey Gitomer would not confirm or deny, under DOL policy, that a complaint was filed. Gitomer did say that, if called upon, the DOL would investigate any violations of the bylaws and constitution of the guild in question.

The DOL does not have the authority to halt an election, Gitomer said, meaning that the rerun will move forward.

An investigation would begin almost immediately and would entail an analysis of the filing followed by a formal investigation.

"We have to determine, in a situation similar to SAG, that the action of the appellate body (the elections committee) was reasonable," said Gitomer. "And to do that, we have to determine if the original issues complained about were properly determined to have been violated."

Ballots for the rerun will be sent out Feb. 11 with a March 8 return date. Gitomer said that it was unlikely that an investigation could be completed by March 8, the night the results of the rerun are scheduled to be announced.

On Jan. 7, a committee -- deemed at the time "the national elections committee" -- unanimously decided to rerun the voting for the three national officer positions of president, treasurer and recording secretary, citing procedural foul-ups caused by SAG staffers and Sequoia Voting Systems, the firm hired by SAG to conduct the election.

In its ruling, the committee said its decision was based on the omission from the ballot package sent to New York branch members of a member signature line and of instructions to sign the return ballot envelope. The committee maintained that this violated the SAG constitution and said that because New York branch voters had two days more to return their ballots than the rest of SAG membership, certain candidates were given an unfair advantage.

"The SAG staff, with Sequoia participation, proceeded to supervise the election of national officers on the erroneous premise that there was no need for uniformly consistent rules," the committee said in its decision.

The committee held hearings in Los Angeles and New York to hear testimony from members who filed the 20-plus challenges received in the week after the initial results were announced Nov. 2.

Farrell, Lewis, Beard, Fleming and Petersen maintain in the complaint that only the Hollywood board and not the entire national board approved the makeup of the committee, and thus it did not have jurisdictional authority to hold hearings in New York. The committee was comprised of Fred Savage, David Huddleston, Ninon Aprea, Rick Barker and Sally Kirkland.

The complaint also alleges that the committee's decision was tainted because all five members "publicly supported, campaigned and/or raised money" for presidential candidate Valerie Harper. In the original election, Melissa Gilbert defeated Harper by 1,588 votes.

"How can a committee comprised of all active supporters of a given candidate and slate serve as a neutral body to hear challenges to election conduct? This in itself should render their decision void," the complaint reads.

Farrell, Lewis, Beard, Fleming, and Petersen are all Gilbert supporters.

The complaint charged that the committee "willfully disregarded facts and misrepresented testimony entered into evidence before them," during the hearings. A SAG spokeswoman declined comment.

At Monday's meeting, the board voted to approve the rerun but decided to appoint a new national elections committee to oversee it. Fearing a repeat, the board decided that the new committee will be comprised of three members from Hollywood (Paul Napier, Cynthia Steele and Sumi Haru), two from New York (Eileen Henry and Paul Christie) and one from the branches (Cece DuBois), in order to fairly represent SAG's national makeup. In an interesting side note, all five members of the original committee declined candidacy.

Three separate election challenges came from the floor and were ruled out of order by Mark Steinberg, SAG's general counsel and deputy national director for policy and planning.

"The debate was illuminating, but there were no fireworks," said SAG national executive director/CEO Bob Pisano, reached during the dinner break. "There was a lot of thoughtful comment."

At its morning session, the board put the finishing touches on the new governance plan that will reduce the size of the board from 107 to 62 members. The change in the language to SAG's constitution required by the new plan was approved by a vote of 102-3 and will reduce the number of national officers from three to two and the number of vps from 12 to three.

The current board is to serve until fall, when all board seats will be up for re-election. SAG's three national officers will serve their terms until 2003.

The plan is expected to streamline SAG's governing process and save the guild an estimated $500,000 a year. A membership referendum will now be initiated. "I am obviously gratified we got governance to the next stage," Pisano said. "It is an important milestone in the process of streamlining governance."

Meanwhile, the Association of Talent Agents, which has been negotiating with SAG for nearly two weeks over a new franchise agreement, has decided to push back the dates for its membership meetings by a week. The ATA had originally scheduled meetings for today and Wednesday, but at the request of SAG, those meetings will now take place on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Pisano declined comment on the status of the ATA negotiations.