SAG Saga Remains Unchanged Despite Marathon Meeting
Head Negotiator Doug Allen Keeps His Position—For Now
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 1/14/2009 6:03:00 AM
A meeting of the full board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild, which lasted more than 30 hours on Monday and Tuesday, concluded without setting a mailing date for a strike authorization ballot and without the removal of controversial head negotiator Doug Allen.
The ballots were to have gone out Jan. 2, but that action was put off when SAG president Alan Rosenberg decided to call an in-person meeting of the entire board in an apparent effort to unify various factions of the board.
But some board members showed up to the meeting in Hollywood with a proposal to oust Allen and put strike negotiations into the hands of others.
According to a statement issued Jan. 13 by SAG, in-house and outside counsel analyzed the proposal and concluded it was not valid, in part because it didn't have enough signatures and it was not clear that those who signed it intended to seek Allen's removal.
Allen and the negotiating team remain dedicated to contract negotiations, the statement said, adding that no "substantive actions" were taken in the marathon meeting.
It is now unlikely that votes needed for a strike authorization will be counted by the previous target date of Jan. 23.
The union now has been without a valid contract since June 2008.
Meanwhile, partisans continue to take their arguments to the Internet with short films for and against a strike, such as those at the site www.savethebiz.org. That mini-film, starring James Cromwell and Mitch Ryan, trails a craftsman as she checks in with all the people involved with production on a working set. Cromwell's voiceover asserts that production in L.A. County is already down to half of what it was two years ago. In the event of a strike in this poor economy, "what will be left of the film industry when it's all over?" This question is stated over the silhouette of the production worker in front of blank screen as the lights go out, one by one.
