Remember last year when all our favorite shows played re-runs for months because the Screen Actors Guild was striking about non-union actors being in new media, like internet. Yeh, well it looks like we might have to go through all that again.

The Screen Actors Guild said Saturday it will ask its members to authorize a strike after its first contract talks in four months with Hollywood studios failed despite the help of a federal mediator.

“They’re asking us to bless a system we believe would be the beginning of the end of residuals, and that’s a very scary thought for working actors,” he said.

The producers’ alliance condemned the SAG decision and said it remains the only major Hollywood guild without a labor deal this year. “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,” a producers’ statement said. “The tone-deafness of SAG is stunning.”

SAG’s national board has already authorized its negotiating committee to call for a strike authorization vote if mediation failed. The vote would take more than a month and require more than 75 percent approval to pass. SAG wants union coverage for all Internet-only productions regardless of budget and residual payments for Internet productions replayed online, as well as continued actor protections during work stoppages.

Actors in prime-time television shows and movies have been working under the terms of a contract that expired June 30, with the hope of avoiding a repeat of the 100-day writers strike which shut down production of dozens of TV shows and cost the Los Angeles area economy an estimated $2.5 billion.

In the situation our country is in right now, I don’t think we can afford for either side to be greedy. I hope they reach an agreement sooner rather than later.

[image: eonline]