"Actor's Equity is listening."  So they tell us in this letter.  Let's just see, shall we?  As always, my font (like my feelings) are bold.

A Letter to the Los Angeles Equity Membership

We hear the impassioned voices of actors and others attached to intimate theatre in Los Angeles. 

Great!  Then I'm sure you are hearing that we hate this proposal.  We find it ill-advised, hasty, and insulting.  You hear that we are open for change, but not this change.  You must be hearing this, because we've been saying it over and over again.
 
Actors’ Equity has been on a listening campaign and although we have been accused of "not listening," 

How does one go on a listening campaign?  Seriously, I really want to know.  Now, I'm a classically trained actor, and I believe that listening is perhaps the most important thing one can do.  But I can't imagine a campaign of listening.  Because, to listen one needs a point of view.  One doesn't just receive sounds in a vacuum and absorb it.  To listen, you are trying to hear specific things.  So, a listening campaign must be people hearing things from a point of view.  Since AEA has repeatedly stated that their point of view is that 99 Seat Theatre is a nightmare to oversee, and that all actors must be paid minimum wage, I'm guessing that your listening campaign was heard by ears listening for things to defend this point of view.
 
we have spent the last 6 weeks, mostly silent, 

With the excepting of phone banks soliciting yes votes, mass emails to equity members from celebrities not involved in the 99 seat community, and constant badgering by the vocal majority of members actually for this ridiculous plan,
 
trying to cut through the sound and fury to hear the concerns, suggestions, and ideas of all members so that Council can make a determination that is responsive to ALL sides of the debate.

If that were true, you would have tabled this mock vote and actually come to the bargaining table.  If you were truly listening to ALL sides you would know that this isn't a fight about getting paid vs. not getting paid.  You would know that there is nuance to this debate, which your proposal doesn't take into account.  We are all for change!  So, we are all on the same side. So why are you pushing this clumsy measure through?

Sadly, in this debate members have been shamed and intimidated for asking to be paid. 

And other members have been shamed and intimidated for wanting to keep their artistic homes.  See, this is what really listening means.  I will admit that people have been shamed and intimidated on your side.  You must do the same.  This is a fight.  And aside from the shame and intimidation being laid on our side, we are also being minimized as "hyperbolic non-professional hobbyists."
 
Union leadership has been vilified and humiliated in an effort to stop the union from speaking to its members. 

Meanwhile union members aren't allowed access to also reach out to the entire union population with the other side of the story.
 
And all the while Council has kept their ears open, listening to the community, and the entire community has weighed in (members and non-members alike).

I think some members of the council have done so.  I don't believe the author of this missive is one.

Now, in the lead up to what has been called a "pay your dues rally" but is in actuality a march and demonstration against your labor union, a vocal contingent of celebrity members and other proponents of the status quo have chosen to use historic civil rights photographs as their "logo," defacing them and claiming that Equity is "immoral" for seeking minimum wage payment for actors.

Hang on, I thought we were the ones who were emotional and hyperbolic.  This is gross oversimplification and manipulative beyond words.  And I am confused by your use of quotation marks.  Is it a logo, or a "logo?"  is it defacing them and claiming that Equity is immoral, or "immoral?"  Seriously, WTF are you trying to say?  I get that you are "outraged" (quotation marks indicate irony on a couple of levels), but are you really outraged?

Actors’ Equity has been in the forefront of social justice issues for all of its 102 year history. 

Which is why we love you.
 
Leaders of Actors’ Equity MARCHED with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the sanitation workers strike, just before he was assassinated. 

I tried to march with him after he was assassinated, but he just wasn't in to it.
 
The use of historic documents from this era to somehow argue that actors should not be paid for rehearsing and performing is appalling, to say the least.

Really?  You can't see a correlation between a group of people who had no voice in what was happening to them to the civil rights movement?  (See what I did there?)
 
 These proponents of the status quo have cried "shame" on their union's efforts to provide minimum wage payments to its members. 

Now you're starting to piss me off.  If you were really listening (during this long listening campaign you've been on), you would know that we are for "change, just not this change."  Jesus.  We are staying on message (unlike you lot) because we actually believe what we say.  And providing minimum wage payments to members was a convenient sound bite, but it's a disaster on your end.  It's every bit as much of a token payment as a stipend is, but it involves labor laws, and governmental oversight.  And it will be a tough position to come back from, if the council really believes that a yes vote is a "yes but" vote.
 
If there is shame in any of this, it is truly on those who would twist the truth and co-opt history in such a repellent way. The heroes of the civil rights movement stood side by side with unions; they did not march against fundamental rights and fair wages for working men and women.

Those unions stood up for their members.  These are union members marching against a union that refuses to hear (despite such a concerted campaign of listening) the needs of their own members.  And for you to set yourselves up as the heroes of this civil rights movement is disgusting.  If you can't see a similarity between what we march for, and what generations of people in this country have marched for (to be heard by a power), then you are deaf.

We understand that there are members that disagree with the proposal that Council has put forward. 

Wow.  Well, that's a start.
 
The most vitriolic among the members/producer-members/producers have said that Equity will single-handedly kill/annihilate/destroy theatre in Los Angeles. 

Let me take this apart.  If the most vitriolic have said this, then it can be dismissed.  Ok.  So your point is rendered moot.  But let's pick apart the point anyway for shits and giggles:  There can be no denying that some theatres will close under this new plan.  (For those who have given their lives to those theatres, I think it's safe to call that an annihilation).  The "membership" clause of the agreement allows no new members or membership companies, which means that Equity is acting as an authority putting sanctions on membership companies which cannot be lifted.  Sanctions exist for the sole reason to starve another of resources.  Therefore these membership companies will also be "killed," very slowly over time.  And I would also like to say that the heart of Los Angeles theatre exists in productions that challenge, excite, and transform both artist and audience.  I'm not sure whether those in their ivory towers in New York believe this, but companies working under the 99 seat theatre agreement do this every night.  (sure not every theatre, or every production, but the primary artistic/paradigm shifting theatre comes from these companies.)  And let me be very careful here.  It will still be possible to form new companies under these new rules, but they will be severely hampered by this.  And the companies that now exist will eventually die out.  Won't this, in a way destroy the heart of theatre in LA?  I think it will.  Many of us who are not in the least vitriolic (but simply reasonable) think it will in fact, kill/annihilate/and destroy the heart of theatre in Los Angeles.

 They claim that we plan to violate their human rights by dictating how they "practice their art,"

Who said anything about taking away human rights?  Are you once again talking about the most vitriolic?  Well that's a strawman that has already been blown down.  Very few people are equating this with the holocaust.  So let's move on.  

that the union intends to take away their freedom of choice.

Freedom of choice is another matter though.  Can we not volunteer our time to art?  Do we not have that choice?  If I love paintings and make myself an expert in a particular genre and then offer my time at a museum as a docent to share that love, do I not have that choice?  As an actor, do I not have the choice to take any role I want in a non-profit organization, every bit as much as a person donating his/her time to their church?  You are in fact, trying to take away choice.  Let's not just tie it to the most vitriolic amongst us.

 Here is the clear truth. Actors’ Equity is a labor union. A labor union represents workers, professionals who have a vocation. 

And those workers are telling you that you are not serving their interests in this case. 
 
The proponents of the status quo 

These mythical creatures who are saying everything should stay exactly as it is...not the current opposition who have said time and time again, "we want change, just not this change."
 
would have us believe that the acting they do is somehow purer than a mere vocation. It is like going to church/the gym/the playground/breathing.

Hold the phone.  Is AEA only serving  actors who see acting as a vocation?  How many actors are there in the world who see acting as nothing more than a job?  (And stage acting particularly?)  I would imagine that your membership would be quite limited if it didn't encompass those who thought they weren't acting because it was a calling, or an artistic venture, or spiritual.  Hell, if you are serving only those stage actors who believe they are going to make their living by working on stage in Los Angeles, your meetings can be held on my tiny porch.

 We have attempted in our current proposals to be responsive even to this point of view with two separate internal membership rules. But as a labor union, we believe that those who work for a commercial enterprise, even a not-for-profit one, should be paid.

We agree.  It's called a stipend.

Whether your stage work is vocational or avocational, whether you favor Equity's proposals or not, we should all decry those who equate a union attempting to value its members with infamous forces of bigotry and intolerance. This egregious behavior must be called out and should not be allowed to stand.

Pretty heavy handed talk for those who have power and are doing everything in said power to take away something that is beloved by thousand of Angelinos (actors and audiences alike).  You don't get to be upset and outraged.  You are the aggressors.  Don't like 99 seat theatre?  Don't do it.  Don't like the way you are being treated?  Don't fucking try to take away something that we love.

Actors’ Equity Association

Is this your name?

My name is Patrick Merck Vest!  I don't hide behind an organization.  Nor do I speak for one.  I am fighting, not for my livelihood, but for my life.