SAG: Can a Diamond hold up under pressure?

We don't want to break our arm patting ourselves on the back or anything, but the trades and the L.A. Times have finally gotten around to printing the story we broke two days ago: Santa Clara University law school professor Steve Diamond is the leading candidate to run SAG. Per the THR, "SAG's Hollywood division board, dominated by MembershipFirst, has scheduled an emergency meeting tonight to consider Diamond's candidacy, and sources said the elected body has demanded that the professor make an appearance, which he plans to do. When this was discovered by the regional branches, they requested that Diamond attend their meeting in Las Vegas last weekend, which he did and was well-received, sources said." As Variety notes, According to Diamond's Web site, he advises the AFL-CIO on corporate governance and financial issues. He joined the faculty of Santa Clara U. in 1999 after five years of private practice, centering on corporate finance; prior to entering law school, Diamond was on the staff of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley, where he worked closely with labor unions on a variety of issues. It's that first sentence that might well get him into trouble with the SAG national board. More and more, our sources tell us, the Hollywood contingent of SAG is considering breaking away from the AFL-CIO. (Last July, two of the nation's largest and most powerful unions also resigned from the AFL-CIO - the 1.7 million-member Service Employees International Union, the biggest union in the AFL-CIO, and the 1.3 million-strong International Brotherhood of Teamsters.) Given Diamond's advisory relationship with the American Federation of Labor, the board may very well be reluctant embrace a CEO who'd be unwilling to sever ties with the mother of all unions. Stay tuned...

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SAG: Can a Diamond hold up under pressure?

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