I don't even know where to start with the current Screen Actors Guild situation. Their Negotiating Committee hit an impasse bargaining with the AMPTP. After many months, SAG's national board ousted that committee and its Head Negotiator, replacing them with something they called a "task force" and sent it in to try and get an acceptable deal. The task force made some major concessions and the AMPTP made some major concessions. But when the two sides failed to reach a deal, the talks collapsed. The Producers sent out what they called their "last, best, final" offer…and now the SAG national board has rejected it with a 73% vote.
So where does this leave things? Up a creek, sans paddle. The SAG national board doesn't want to put this offer to a vote of the membership. They don't want to ask for a strike authorization. The Producers are refusing to restart the talks. So whatever brief light there might have been down at the end of the tunnel has now been extinguished and no one seems to know what happens next.
The scenario some people are hoping for is something that might be called The Lew Wasserman Move. Lew Wasserman was an old-time Hollywood agent-mogul who more-or-less ran the town in the sixties. When things were at an impasse with some union, Lew was known to pick up the phone, make a few calls and broker a deal. Everyone seems to be hoping something of the sort will happen now…or at least, that's the fantasy. The reality is that today, at a time when entertainment companies are owned by international super-corporations, there's no one with the expansive power of a Lew Wasserman…no one who can call all the principals and say, with a note of Threat in his voice, "Hey, let's get this settled."
I have no idea where things go from here. It may depend on whether this new impasse causes the rival factions in SAG to bond and unite against their common enemy. Three days ago, this seemed about as likely as me winning Best Supporting Actress tonight. Now, that reconciliation is a remote possibility…and if the studios see they've overplayed their hand and are fixing a broken SAG, they may scurry to better the offer.
The big obstacle at the moment seems to be the expiration date of the three-year contract. SAG wants it to run out three years from when the old deal did. The AMPTP wants it to expire three years from when it gets signed. If SAG got its way, the union would be in a much better position for the next negotiation. If the AMPTP date prevails, SAG would again be last in line behind the other unions, most notably AFTRA which undercut them this time by going first. This is probably solvable if both sides put their mind to that goal. At the moment though, no one is trying to solve it. Jeez, what a mess.