The big Screen Actors Guild exec board meeting finally adjourned after more than 30 hours, which means it lasted longer than half the shows on the NBC fall schedule. What was decided? Apparently, nothing. But the guild's head negotiator, Doug Allen, has not been fired…at least, not yet. Both Variety and Hollywood Reporter reported that he was terminated, and the Hollywood Reporter website still says so, more than seven hours after others who announced it began retracting. (By the way: If you read either of those papers' accounts of the local labor situation, keep in mind that they both operate from a premise that in any dispute, those with the most power, fame and money must be in the right. Variety especially seems to have this notion lately that if you run a studio, especially a studio that buys a lot of ads in Variety, you can do no wrong.)
So where does this leave us? In theory, SAG is still going to call for a strike authorization vote for its members but no one is saying when or betting that it won't be called off. Allen is still in his job but no one's betting that will continue unabated. My guess is they're trying to stitch together some sort of coalition negotiating team, with or without Allen, that can present a united front of two factions that have been galloping in opposite directions. There has to be some fear that if they can't manage that, this messy working-without-a-contract situation will never end…but the Screen Actors Guild might.