Members of the Screen Actors Guild have elected a more "militant" slate of officers and so have the members of the Writers Guild. The new WGA officials have begun by dismissing John McLean, who has functioned as the Guild's Executive Director since 1999. The news reports may not tell you this but Mr. McLean was perceived by many in the Guild leadership as being too reticent to confront Management, too eager to accept mediocre contracts rather than go to war. His ouster is definitely a sign than the new board wants to take a harder line, even at the risk of striking.
We have some time before either SAG or the WGA has to negotiate a new contract. But I'll bet we start to hear the low rumblings of a couple of separate but similar major confrontations…and maybe before that, some small skirmishes over the interpretation and enforcement of the current contracts.