It's not looking good for the Screen Actors Guild in its negotiation with the AMPTP. The talks have been extended but every word leaking from within says that the studios are trying to force SAG to accept some version of the deal already made with the DGA, WGA and other unions. And SAG is saying, in effect, "That deal — and your version of it, in particular — doesn't work for us."
I haven't been following this one as closely as I followed the WGA negotiations. I don't have any real sources within SAG calling me. But from all I read, the operating assumption is that SAG will have to either take a deal it abhors or begin making picket signs. In the meantime, the AMPTP will soon be sitting down with AFTRA, the other actors' union, and everyone seems to think AFTRA will take darn near whatever the studios offer. This would further undermine the SAG position and create a lot of ill will between the two unions.
Twice in the last half-dozen years, there were proposals that came close to merging SAG and AFTRA into one big union that probably would have been stronger than the sum of its parts. Each time, the leaderships of both unions endorsed the proposal. Each time, it was then necessary to get a 60% vote of the memberships to consolidate. Each time, the AFTRA side voted overwhemingly in favor. And each time, the SAG side fell a bit short. The SAG vote was 52% in 1999 and 57.8% in 2003.
What will happen next time they talk of merger? Your guess is as good as mine. The current situation probably makes the SAG members who voted against the alliance regret that vote. But depending on how things roll out, the two unions may not speak to each other for years.
Without knowing the terms on the table, I think it's safe to assume that SAG is presently being slammed by the old Pattern Bargaining trick…a longtime fave of the AMPTP. The idea is to craft proposals in a form that works for Union A and not for Union B. Then after Union A accepts, you try to force the same deal on B as a done deal, a precedent of how business must henceforth be done. In this case, SAG has the added pressure of knowing that AFTRA will probably accept the pattern…so SAG negotiators are being boxed-in from all sides.
I'll stand by my previous prediction, which is that there won't be a SAG strike but it's going to come awfully close and look very likely. Despite all this, SAG still has a lot of clout. A strike — even a short one — would hurt the studios a lot. For that matter, it will hurt the studios if this thing goes down to the wire, to the expiration date of the current SAG contract, which is June 30. There a lot of movies that are prepped to shoot soon but won't as long as there's the possibility of that walkout. In a sense, the SAG strike is on now because a lot of projects are being scrubbed or postponed.
More news when there's more news.