Screen Actor's Guild Not Striking {It's Hoped}

After 2 days and approximately 27 hours worth of negotiating, on Friday November 21 2008, federal mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez emerged from talks with representatives of the Screen Actor's Guild {SAG} and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers {AMPTP}, with both participants still in disagreement.

i feel for Mr.Gonzalez, because just gathering research for the past 2 days on this beef, i am exhausted. i can imagine the toll of having actually been in the room while the talks were in session. Talks without mediation had been in suspension since July. At the request of both parties, Mr.Gonzalez has been mediating the dispute since October.

In a nutshell at issue is compensation with regard to "new media" {read DVD and/or internet projects}. SAG wants not only a guarantee of residuals, but also a higher dollar amount for residuals on all "new media" projects than AMPTP is willing to provide.

What's interesting is that when a mediator was requested, and both parties were presumably negotiating with an open mind, SAG simultaneously voted to "give its negotiating committee the go-ahead to call for a strike-authorization vote if the mediation failed." SAG requires 75% of its voting members to approve the measure in order to go forward with a strike. SAG says that an authorization to strike does not necessarily mean they will strike. With that in mind, in an interview on KTLA-TV Los Angeles, SAG president Alan Rosenberg said "we have to put bullets in our gun in order to get a deal."

i hope for Mr.Rosenberg's, the union member's and the peripheral economic factors' sake that SAG does not shoot it's self in the foot.
If you agree that a strike will be detrimental, please sign the petition at:
No SAG Strike

Related:
Petition calls on SAG to drop strike bid
Beatty, Bening, Nicholson, Nolte, and Streep Secretly Approve Strike
SAG to seek strike authorization
The Strike Zone:SAG/AFTRA