Screen Actors Guild members are upset after George Clooney criticized their decision to expel three strikebreakers who worked during last year’s commercial strike, Variety reports.
Clooney took the issue to the SAG national board last week, after he learned that Mario Barbieri Cecchini, Gerry Donato and Robert Kalomeer had been expelled from the union.
“I suggest that in this time of healing that we accept all of the actors’ apologies, attach fines appropriately and fairly and let people go about the business of chasing their dreams,” Clooney told the SAG national board.
Clooney added that the punishments for the strikebreakers were not equivalent to those given to actress Elizabeth Hurley and golfer Tiger Woods, who received a $100,000 fine each for performing non-union work last year.
But SAG saw things differently.
According to Reuters, board member Tom Bosley said that the punishments for Hurley and Woods were “just” and the fines helped members who had been on strike, BBCNews.com reports.
In a letter to Clooney, Bosley told the actor that he did not have the full story, and that the board could not disclose further details on the strikebreaker’s case.
“I was the one who voted to oust these three members for reasons far more severe than just breaking the strike line, working or auditioning ‘struck work,'” Bosley said in the letter.
“There are so many ways you can help your fellow SAG members,” Bosley added in the letter. “Offering to pay to have three people, who hurt their fellow actors, restored to the ranks of membership is wrong and will never happen.”
SAG member Gary D. Mosher also sent the actor a letter, saying that “the lifetime ban for Gerry Donato was not only fair, it was deserved.” Mosher claims Donato punched him on a picket line.
