who helped spearhead the 2012 merger of SAG and AFTRA, has died. She was 86. Scott, a longtime television news broadcaster, served as AFTRA’s national president from 1993-2001. She was a member of the “Group for One Union” of SAG and AFTRA leaders who spearheaded the 2012 merger effort and co-led a merger workgroup, one of only ten elected leaders to do so.
Over the course of her long broadcasting career, she was awarded United Press International’s Tom Phillips Citation for Excellence in Broadcasting, the William F. Horner Jr. Award from Suffolk University for Excellence in Journalism, and was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcast Hall of Fame in 2008.
Scott was elected to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ national board in 1981 and became president of the union in 1993, after serving as national first vice president and president of the Boston Local. She led AFTRA through its first attempted merger with the Screen Actors Guild in 1998/99, and through numerous major contract negotiations, including the AFTRA Network and Sound Recordings codes.