SAG Update: Union Meets with Mediator

Huffington Post, 10.27.08
by Jonathan Handel

SAG leaders met Friday with the federal mediator, and in a statement said that they discussed with him the union's request for mediation and "the possibilities regarding the resumption of negotiations." The AMPTP is set to meet with the mediator Thursday.

It's hard to be optimistic though: the two sides are very far apart, and both are very dug in to their positions, particularly on new media. Unfortunately, I expect mediation will fail by around mid-November, leading to the negotiating committee sending a strike authorization vote to the membership. That reportedly takes 30-45 days, suggesting that we could have a strike in January.

-excerpted-....Here, though, the studios face, in their calculation, a downside if they do a deal on SAG's terms: they would be "rewarding" a very intransigent union and would be fracturing the new media template they've fought so hard for. Unions that accepted the template -- the Directors Guild and the smaller AFTRA actors union -- would have been in effect punished for their more accommodating style of negotiations. Moreover, the AMPTP would be giving additional ground in a significantly worsened economy.

This is the formula for a long and bitter strike. Full article