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Following an unsuccessful period of meetings between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) at the request of federal mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez, according to the AMPTP, "the parties were unable to reach an agreement and the mediator has adjourned the mediation process."
In response, SAG issued a statement, that includes the expected word that the next step for the union may be for its members to strike:
Management continues to insist on terms we cannot responsibly accept on behalf of our members. As previously authorized by the National Board of Directors, we will now launch a full-scale education campaign in support of a strike authorization referendum. We will further inform our members about the core, critical issues unique to actors that remain in dispute.We have already made difficult decisions and sacrifices in an attempt to reach agreement. Now it's time for SAG members to stand united and empower the national negotiating committee to bargain with the strength of a possible work stoppage behind them.
We remain committed to avoiding a strike but now more than ever we cannot allow our employers to experiment with our careers. The WGA has already learned that the new media terms they agreed to with the AMPTP are not being honored. We cannot allow our employers to undermine the futures of our members and their families.
Will actors, like Ben Stiller--pictured here participating in the picket lines of the Writers Guild Strike just one year ago--go on strike, too? | Photo by Jonathan Alcorn (Sundogg) via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
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The film industry is one of the few businesses still working in this economic recession/depression and they want to go on strike???
Uh oh.
I hope this ember doesn't turn into a full scale blaze.
My car horn actually went out due to my proximity to the writers' strike picket-spots.
Ben Stiller is one hairy mother-fucker.
the world would be a better place without their shitty movies and shows anyway
I've been hoping the two sides would be able to come to an agreement. I don't want a strike--I like to watch my tv shows. Oh well, now that I can stream Netflix over my Xbox, as least I can watch old shows. popculturecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/
The film industry is actually super slow right now and has been for a couple months, TV & Feature production is low because of fear of a SAG strike, repercussions of the writers strike and the economy. The Commercial and Music Video are slow because of the economy and labels & ad agencies aren't getting money from clients to produce spots and MVs. Independent Film is almost nonexistent because they can't get financing or credit. If SAG strikes it would be a big nail in the coffin for production in So Cal. I don't know if the film industry ( vendors, crew, caterers and all of the many other industries that rely on the biz) could take another hit with the economy as bad as it is. It would be worse than the Commercial SAG strike in the 90s which taught producers with money and job to award to take their business to countries outside SAG jurisdiction. The Commercial production world never fully recovered and many vendors and crew lost their livelihood. I hope SAG takes into consideration that the biz is not all about them and looks at the bigger picture this time.
While a strike makes for great news coverage and crazy photos of well-known actors picketing on the streets, it will be detrimental for our local economy, which is already worsened by the national one. Let's hope it doesn't go there.
Here we go again...
Should this strike come to fruition, it probably won't be as bad as the WGA strike, earlier this year. About 65% of SAG's voting body are regulary out of work, so they can't take the hit anymore than those of us who work in support.
Needless to say, all of us who make a living from production are watching this issue closely.
You ought to look at the following short video produced in Cologne, Germany by TV Star Andreas Stenschke. It points to what is at stake for writers, actors and directors regarding the potential loss of income when reruns of TV shows and movies go to the Internet rather than on cable and broadcast TV, where they currently show. It is particularly relevant as the Writers Guild is now in a battle with the AMPTP over their reneging of the Internet residual formula agreed to at the end of the strike in February.
The Europeans' (and other international artists) situation is absurd and the AMPTP producers and networks would like nothing more than to remake that as their modus operandi on our shores as well.
Strangely, the embedded code I put in for the link referenced above appeared in the preview mode, but did not come forth when the comment was published.
Therefore, I am inserting the link to the video mentioned above, as it is quite pertinent to the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PPZV3dTzbg
I'm all for the actors getting whatever they want, but now is not really the best time for our local economy to stage a strike. I have heard that many of the SAG organizers are actors who had their heyday in the 80's and are still financially okay, and thus think nothing of shutting out the crews, caterers etc who a strike like this really effects. I hope it's not true. Let's hang steady this year and try it again, say this time next year.