A Man of Faith and Action

John Connolly, AFTRA's New President,
Prepares for a New Age

By Roger Armbrust (Back Stage)

John Connolly--oldest son from an Irish working-class family in South Philly, actor, labor activist, newly elected national president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists--has just been asked if faith has played a role in his life.

"Faith?" he responds softly. "That's a wonderful question. I suppose somewhere deep inside I must have faith that, as Hamlet says, 'There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.' In other words, there is a Providence that looks after us all."

He goes on to speak of how his parents impressed him through Roman Catholicism of "the importance of conscience and free will. The ethic my father and mother taught me came out of Catholicism: being true to yourself; being true and upright and straightforward in the world. I suppose that's all wrapped up in faith."

He moves naturally then to conflict: "There's always a conflict going on between the authority of the church and the doctrine of the church which preaches free will, and the importance of conscience. That battle has driven me all through my life. Maybe that's why I'm a trade-union actor."

Perhaps Connolly will put that philosophy to its greatest test as he takes the helm of AFTRA's 80,000-member union. During his interview he turns any potential conflict within the union between its newscasting members and entertainment performers to a cause for better pay and working conditions for all. He recognizes the natural conflict between producers and their employees when contracts and labor-environment issues arise. He also takes on past and future concerns over relations between AFTRA and the Screen Actors Guild, and recent conflicts with AGMA.

He seems to weave it all into the proverbial loose garment, a mantle of leadership he plans to wear with an understanding of AFTRA's history, and a clear view of its future in a new century of corporate mergers and changing technology.

AFTRA Past and Present

"Over the past decade, the leadership in AFTRA has very consciously attempted to remake our organization without ripping it to shreds," Connolly states candidly. "We did a study of our union, trying to objectively look at where AFTRA was and where business was evolving. In the mid-'80s, AFTRA was probably the perfect union for 1955. Now we're attempting to reshape the union to really work in the modern world. We saw that, if we let the gap continue to grow, we were going to be in trouble."

The union, in fact, was in trouble. Through the 1990s it struggled with a deficit, and saw entertainment corporations begin to merge into media conglomerates as AFTRA approved a merger with SAG, but SAG members turned it down. AFTRA seemed to respond to that repulsion by making a serious effort to get its own house in order. The union turned to a posture of an activist national office dealing with government and the industry, while keeping local autonomy among its branches. It also devised a new dues structure which has moved the union in sight of wiping out its deficit over the next fiscal year.

"We upgraded our finances, and took on the paradigm of focus between local autonomy and strength, and a national approach to an industry which is extremely sophisticated," Connolly stresses, "and we've done it, frankly, without tearing the organization apart. We've evolved at least two new generations of leaders in AFTRA, certainly on the staff level; and we've increased our sophistication enormously. We've centralized our finances so we can maximize our focus with our resources.

"We can now work as an organization that--while we can't match our employers dollar for dollar, or lawyer for lawyer--can meet the responsibility to use every dime our members pay in dues in the most efficient way. And then take those dollar-type resources and combine with our other major resources: experience and insight and energy of our staff. We're really accelerating now, and intend to make greater use of our 80,000 members in carrying out our union's mission. The key for us is to unleash the creative and intelligent energy of our members. That's the way we'll succeed."

That mission for AFTRA, much like the Starship Enterprise, is to go where the union hasn't gone before.

"Even 10 years ago, there were 1,000 radio stations and 300 TV stations," Connolly says in introducing the union's activist itinerary. "Now there are 10,000 radio stations and easily 1,000 or more TV stations. We've gone from three networks to six, if you count PAX. There are 200 cable stations.

"The possibilities in both information-and-news programming and entertainment-and-arts programming is enormous," Connolly continues. "We haven't even talked about the Internet yet. There are literally thousands of possibilities for programming without the Internet. All have to be populated by human beings. Those human beings have the right to expect to make a reasonable living doing this work. That's our mission: There are literally tens of thousands of jobs waiting to be organized by AFTRA.

"We've had extraordinary success in organizing broadcast and entertainment, and intend to step it up: from sound recordings, albums and the music business to dramatic programming in various forms of TV; to commercials and broadcast."

SAG and AGMA

Connolly is also a former SAG national board member, and was active in the founding of the Performers Alliance, a group of reform-minded actors who moved into a position of controlling the guild's Hollywood board. He eventually had a falling out with the alliance, but now puts that conflict behind him. He speaks of working in solidarity with SAG, a worthy goal since the two unions negotiate their major contracts in unison.

The American Guild of Musical Artists has also challenged AFTRA's jurisdiction over opera and ballet performers' recorded performances. But Connolly steps back from conflict there too. "I'm pretty confident that we've taken the right tone and approach to this," he says of the dispute with AGMA. "We want the members who work in these areas to be able to qualify for health and retirement, whether with AFTRA or AGMA funds. That's a real crucial element in all this. We want to make sure we do what's best by the performers. We've made very good-faith approaches to AGMA in terms of trying to make this work for performers, and I trust that Greg Hessinger's [AFTRA's national executive director] instincts and finesse will see us through to a reasonable conclusion."

Caressing a Career

In his 30-year acting career, it might be easier to list what Connolly hasn't done. He's appeared in all media: TV, films, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in regional theatre. He speaks fondly of the regional theatre days in Milwaukee, Philly, Pittsburgh, the Twin Cities, and Stanford, Conn.

He warmly remembers working with the likes of Shirley Knight, the late Colleen Dewhurst, Randy Quaid, Joseph Wiseman, performing "The Iceman Cometh" with Al Pacino. He happily name drops longtime friend Patrick Quinn, now president of Actors' Equity.

Perhaps nothing speaks more to Connolly's faith than this: After three decades of entertainment and union activity, he's ready to really get to work.

Reprinted from Back Stage September 4, 2001. BPI Communications 2001. Reprinted with permission by Back Stage.