As we've been noting here, the Screen Actors Guild is fast losing the momentum they'd need to mount an effective strike. Celebrity members are coming out in droves against that strategy and there's a bad fracture between the West Coast and East Coast wings of the union.
The latest development is that the announced strike vote has been postponed. It was to start January 2. Now, it's being delayed until after an emergency national board meeting on January 12-13. This will mostly consist of lower-ranked union leaders attacking their president, Alan Rosenberg, and SAG's national executive director, Doug Allen.
There's a good argument that these two men are not in the wrong; that the offer they've rejected is a bad one and not even the equal of what the WGA and DGA accepted. In many ways, this is exactly the time that SAG needs to take a stand in New Media and establish its right to a bigger share. If I were a SAG member, I think that's where I'd be…but I'd also recognize that developments, especially with the split with AFTRA and its acceptance of this deal, have undermined our position. It's near-impossible to imagine a scenario where all of SAG gets on the same page, links arms and takes a stance to demand something better.
So it all comes down to the big question: How does SAG get off this limb with a minimum of structural damage? The answer is probably going to involve dumping on Rosenberg and Allen, and installing co-negotiators (or just plain different ones) who can accept the deal that has been denounced as insufficient. This would be followed by all sorts of renovations on the SAG infrastructure, including a plan to do member outreach and to repair relations, to whatever extent is possible, with AFTRA.
But a strike sure doesn't look possible. If you were Management, how scared would you be of this union staging a mass walkout?