SAG could strike in November
In a message sent to members late Thursday, SAG president Alan Rosenberg and national exec director Doug Allen told members that the national board will meet next weekend on the question of whether to conduct a strike authorization over SAG's master contract on features and primetime. If the national board approves, the leaders said than SAG will then need 30 to 45 days to hold such a vote among members.
"If 75% of the qualified SAG members who vote in the referendum support the strike authorization, only then can the national board of directors call an actual work stoppage, should the board decide that it has become necessary to do so," Rosenberg and Allen said in the missive.
The duo noted that it was "important" to note that if passed by a majority of the national board, the resolution does not call a strike. "It only provides for a membership referendum to be conducted, which will take approximately 30 to 45 days," they said.
In a response issued Friday, the congloms took issue with the assertion by Rosenberg and Allen that the authorization wouldn't lead to a strike.
"SAG negotiators seem determined to force another unnecessary, harmful strike," the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers said. "Why else would SAG negotiators be unreasonably insisting, at a time of national economic collapse, on a better deal that the one achieved by the other
Hollywood Guilds much earlier this year, during much better economic times?"
The notice is the guild's first official notification of members of a possible timeline for a strike. However, it's uncertain whether SAG's national board will support sending out the strike authorization when it meets on Oct. 18.
Rosenberg and Allen noted that SAG’s negotiating committee passed a resolution on Oct. 1 urging the national board to take a strike authorization vote -- even though the negotiating committee had the power to initiate the vote on its own.
Instead, the committee deferred the matter to the national board, where control shifted last month away from the Hollywood-based Membership First faction, led by Rosenberg, to a less assertive coalition composed of reps from the New York and regional branches and the upstart Unite for Strength faction.
Unite for Strength, which gained enough Hollywood seats to give the moderates a one-vote edge, hasn't yet revealed whether it will support the call for a strike authorization vote. During its campaign, Unite for Strength asserted that Membership First had bungled the negotiations by alienating the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, which saw its members ratify AFTRA's primetime deal in July over SAG's objections.
Rosenberg and Allen also noted that a strike would not impact work on the more than 750 indie features that have been given waivers -- or guaranteed completion contracts -- under which producers who aren't repped by the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers agree to adhere to whatever deal SAG signs with the AMPTP. SAG began giving waivers months before the June 30 expiration of the contract so significant numbers of those projects have already been shot.
The AMPTP has blasted SAG’s efforts to move toward a strike authorization on two fronts. They've pointed out that SAG continues to seek sweeter terms than the WGA, DGA and AFTRA and that it's doing so with the world in a financial crisis.
SAG and the AMPTP have not met since July 16. Allen insists that informal negotiations have been taking place since then -- an assertion that's been explicitly and repeatedly denied by the majors.
For its part, SAG announced Sept. 29 that it wanted to resume talks after highlighting three issues as keys to reaching a deal -- payment for repeats via Web streaming of made-for-Internet productions; SAG jurisdiction for all made-for-Internet productions; and maintaining the force majeure provision in the expired master contract.
But AMTP president Nick Counter said the same day that further talks would be not be productive as long as SAG’s positions remained unchanged from their last face-to-face meeting in July.
"The DGA, WGA and AFTRA reached agreement on comparable terms months ago, during far better economic times, and it is unrealistic for SAG negotiators now to expect even better terms during this grim financial climate," the AMPTP warned on Oct. 1. " This is the harsh economic reality, and no strike will change that reality."
The AMPTP's calculator on its Web site estimated as of Friday that SAG members have lost over $23.3 million in gains they would have achieved over the past three and a half months had the majors' final offer been ratified.
More than one option(Person) Doug Allen
Actor, Construction, Director
(Person) Doug Allen
Character Design
(Person) Doug Allen
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117993816.html?categoryid=18&cs=1
Screen Actors Guild negotiators call for strike vote
Remember all those worries about an actors' strike if the union didn't get the deal it wanted from the conglomerates? Well, it's far from over, folks. Yesterday, the Screen Actors Guild's negotiating committee issued a recommendation that its National Board call for a strike authorization vote from the 120,000 members. The union cannot walk the picket line until 75 percent of members who vote on the issue say it is okay. The National Board is set to meet Oct. 18.
SAG is the lone holdout still negotiating a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (its previous deal expired in June). Guilds for the writers, directors, and daytime actors all signed new pacts with the major studios in the last year. Internet residuals continue represent a key sticking point in SAG's stalled talks with the AMPTP. According to the advisory motion approved by the negotiating committee, "Negotiators...have requested that the AMPTP return to the bargaining table to negotiate a fair deal, and the AMPTP...has refused to change their position and continued to refuse to meet to attempt to advance the negotiations."
The AMPTP responded by questioning whether this was really the time to talk about going on strike, especially given the dire situation on Wall Street. "Not only is the business suffering from recent economic decisions, but if ever there was a time when Americans wanted the diversions of movies and TV, it is now," the AMPTP said in a statement. "The DGA, the WGA, and AFTRA reached agreements on comparable terms months ago, during far better economic times, and it is unrealistic for SAG negotiators now to expect even better terms during this grim financial climate. This is the harsh economic reality, and no strike will change that reality."
Another major Hollywood strike so soon after last year's Writers Guild of America work stoppage would be devastating to the economy in Los Angeles, where one in 10 jobs is said to be in the creative sector. As it is, Bloomberg News just reported that foreclosures in L.A. have tripled, and a strike would not only affect those who directly work in the entertainment industry, but those who make a living off of the biz peripherally, like interior designers and architects, for example.
TroyGould attorney and former WGA counsel Jonathan Handel, who has been blogging about the negotiations for quite some time, believes that a work stoppage now would be a risky roll of the dice by SAG. “A strike would almost certainly cause the studios to withdraw the offer on the table, and what SAG would get at the end of a long and bitter dispute is likely to be worse, or little better, than what they could get now. What SAG needs to do is close a deal promptly and live to fight -- or strike -- another day: mend the relationship with AFTRA, build closer alliances with the WGA, train its members to circumvent the studios by writing, directing, and producing their own new media productions, then come back strong in three years.”
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2008/10/screen-actors-g.html?iid=top25-20081002-Screen+Actors+Guild+negotiators+call+for+strike+vote
j'espere qu'on aura pas une autre greve en novembre des acteurs
deja que l'annee derniere cela a decendu beaucoup de serie nous avons de la cha,ce nous ctte annee
une autre greve casserait vraiment l'insdustrie
