Actors union huddles over Hollywood labor stalemate
 By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A day after their counterproposal to major studios’ “final” contract offer was rebuffed, Screen Actors Guild leaders huddled on Friday to consider their next move in a Hollywood labor stalemate almost certain to drag into next week. In a brief statement released in the evening, SAG said its negotiating team “met behind closed doors throughout the day today discussing bargaining strategies. The negotiations team remains committed to continue to bargain for a fair contract.” But no further talks were scheduled, and SAG made no mention of how it might proceed to reopen negotiations now that management has taken the position that bargaining is over. SAG has, for example, sought higher residual payments for actors from DVD sales and to extend contract coverage to virtually all made-for-Internet programming. The two sides even disagreed over whether they were still bargaining, or what constitutes a rejection. “Our national negotiating committee did not, as has been erroneously reported, reject the AMPTP’s offer,” SAG said in its statement on Friday. “Instead, we made a comprehensive counterproposal that adopted some of their proposals and offered alternatives on others.” But AMPTP spokesman Jesse Hiestand responded by saying, “The counterproposal to a final offer is a rejection to a final offer. It can’t be anything else.” How the status of talks is defined is more than academic. With the old contract now lapsed, the studios could declare a formal impasse in talks, freeing them to impose the terms of their latest offer, or to institute a lockout. Both moves are widely seen as unlikely for now, in part because they could backfire on the studios by giving SAG a rallying point for its members. |
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