Screen Actors Guild rejects contract offer

The Screen Actors Guild has been in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, those same folks who dealt with the Writers Guild at the end of last year and beginning of this one, since April 15. This finally came to a head on Thursday when, after a five-hour meeting, the studios asked that its final offer be put to a vote by the guild. Instead, the Guild refused to relay the offer outright, putting negotiations in an odd standstill and allowing both sides to blame each other, with the AMPTP saying its offer was rejected and the SAG saying that it wasn't, since it was never actually voted on.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with both sides of the failed negotiation. "We did not reject their offer," said chief SAG negotiator Doug Allen. "We made a comprehensive counterproposal that adopted some of their proposals and offered alternatives on others."  Since this was, theoretically, the studios' final offer, though, what they tried to accomplish by this is up for debate.

According to an "inside source," the counterproposal was searching for more DVD and new media residuals than the studios were willing to offer. AMPTP spokesman Jesse Helm argued that, "These counterproposals could've been done over the last five weeks."

No new negotiations have been scheduled, and as of now, guild members are working without contracts. If the guild fails to come to any sort of agreement, the AMPTP can impose its final offer on the guild until a new contract is in place. Studios are being careful not to do anything too rash and anger SAG members, instead hoping that time working off contract will put pressure on the guild leaders to accept the original offer.

In short, then, the good news is that no strike seems imminent and there's a lot of hope that film lovers won't have a repeat of the WGA mess on their hands. For now, the future rests mostly in the SAG's hands.

Related links:
SAG.org
News: Writers Guild of America strike officially finished
News: SAG/AMPTP negotiations off to shaky start

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