SAG Walkout - Seeking Strike Authorization

Alan Rosenberg, President of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), stated today that he is seeking to get strike authorization for the union. What this means is that he and the union are putting up a vote to the members to vote on the authorization to strike. This is an ongoing labor battle that is drawing many people's memories back to this year's earlier WGA (Writers Guild of America) strike which canceled such shows as 24. Talks and mediation broke off this week, prompting SAG to seek the strike authorization vote.

SAG thought the federal mediator would move the union and studios towards the process of negotiating a new deal that would renew their contracts, however that broke down this week. The SAG board decided that as soon as the mediation failed, a strike authorization vote should be sought. A strike can only be authorized when 75% of the union voting members vote to authorize a strike as a tool they can use to further negotiations with the AMPTP (Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers).

Much of this is predictable, however the lackluster economy puts a new spin on the situation and really puts the screws to the SAG union since a strike would almost certainly mean the loss of millions of dollars in wages and countless careers due to an already-recessed economy.

The AMPTP's response to the SAG union's decision to seek a strike authorization vote was right to the point:

"Now, SAG is bizarrely asking its members to bail out the failed negotiating strategy with a strike vote - at a time of historic economic crisis... the tone-deafness of SAG is stunning."

- Producers statement

The AMPTP continued, saying:

"Make no mistake about this. If SAG members authorize a strike, then a strike is all but guaranteed, because SAG has shown no willingness to compromise on its unrealistic demands. Simply put, a vote to authorize a strike will lead inexorably to a strike, and a strike would cost SAG members far more than they can ever expect to gain."

- AMPTP

Uh, duh. It's almost refreshing to hear such plain talk, even though there is clearly some posturing going on within each camp as they jockey for position. The AMPTP makes a good case - why would you want to engage in a strike during a very difficult economic time? When it's all boiled down, the union is simply attempting to violate market forces by "ganging up" its members in order to pressure the Producers to cave in on their many demands.

The SAG side of the story argues that the AMPTP is attempting to use the current climate to take advantage and ensure that actors don't participate in the "new media" which includes the Internet and other online or electronic distribution models. Rosenberg, when presented with this second statement said "Well, I don't know what we're supposed to do - trade away our future?"

He then went on to explain that the strike authorization vote is indeed a tool to make the AMPTP come back to the table and talk to them. What it appears to be, however, is a definitive step towards a new strike and at the worst possible time. SAG may indeed mark out the future of its union members, and actors everywhere... however they may not end up liking the future they enact through a strike at this point in time. Like the WGA strike before it, a strike now seems to benefit the few, with some minor long-term benefits, at the expense of putting a lot of current generation actors out of business.

We'll see what the future holds, but this couldn't be happening at a worse time for that industry. Let's hope reality TV dies before this really hits the fan.