SAG's endgame is still a mystery

Hollywood Reporter, 10.23.08
By Leslie Simmons

He's back: Juan Carlos Gonzalez, the federal mediator who is the same neutral party brought in by the AMPTP last year before the writers strike, may soon play a similar role in the stand-off between the studios and SAG.

This time, it's SAG making the request, and lawyers for the various production companies and AMPTP members met Tuesday and Wednesday to consider the request but issued no decision.

There are bigger questions hanging over the festering stalemate, however. The foremost is: Do SAG's leaders really think the mediator is going to break the logjam? The resolution the guild's executive board passed Sunday gives the go-ahead for its bargaining panel to go to the membership for strike authorization in the event that mediation fails.

...The mediator ploy could simply be a case of SAG exhausting every possible route to a solution -- or it could be a way to avoid a potentially embarrassing rejection of fighting on by the membership.

Perhaps most ominously, bringing in a mediator could shift the timing of a potential strike to Oscar season, when its impact would be most severe.

"I do think the SAG membership would be easily galvanized," one membersaid. "SAG members do not want to take the deal on the table."

Optimists hoping Gonzalez or any other mediator can do anything don't have much to base their hopes on. A licensed attorney, Gonzalez has meager experience in the entertainment industry and was less than effective in the WGA-AMPTP negotiations.
Full article