Filed at 10:12 a.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Screen
Actors Guild said Saturday it will ask its members to authorize a strike
after its first contract talks in four months with Hollywood studios failed
despite the help of a federal mediator.
The guild said it adjourned talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and
Television Producers shortly before 1 a.m. after two marathon sessions with
federal mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez.
SAG, representing more than 120,000 actors in movies, television and other
media, said in a statement that it will launch a ''full-scale education campaign
in support of a strike authorization.''
''We have already made difficult decisions and sacrifices in an attempt to
reach agreement,'' the statement said. ''Now it's time for SAG members to stand
united and empower the national negotiating committee to bargain with the
strength of a possible work stoppage behind them.''
The statement did not specify what led to the impasse, saying only that
''management continues to insist on terms we cannot responsibly accept.'' A SAG
spokeswoman said she would not comment further. A call to the movie producers
group, known as the AMPTP, was not immediately returned.
SAG's national board has already authorized its negotiating committee to call
for a strike authorization vote if mediation failed. The vote would take more
than a month and require more than 75 percent approval to pass.
SAG is seeking union coverage for all Internet-only productions regardless of
budget and residual payments for Internet productions replayed online, as well
as continued actor protections during work stoppages
But the AMPTP said it was untenable for SAG to demand a better deal than what
writers, directors and another actors union accepted earlier in the year,
especially now that the economy has worsened.
Earlier this week, the producers' group said it had reached its sixth labor
deal this year, a tentative agreement on a three-year contract with the local
branches of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving
Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts, accounting for 35,000
workers.
The stagehands alliance accepted Internet provisions that were modeled on
agreements with other unions, the producers group said.
Actors in prime-time television shows and movies have been working under the
terms of a contract that expired June 30, with the hope of avoiding a repeat of
the 100-day writers strike which shut down production of dozens of TV shows and
cost the Los Angeles area economy an estimated $2.5 billion.