LOS ANGELES: The president of the US Screen Actors Guild said on Sunday there were no immediate plans to strike against Hollywood studios, even though a contract with the studios was set to expire late Monday.
We have taken no steps to initiate a strike authorization vote by the members of Screen Actors Guild. Any talk about a strike or a management lockout at this point is simply a distraction, said SAG president Alan Rosenberg in a statement.
With the contract due to expire at midnight on Monday, negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have so far failed to produce a deal, raising concerns of another crippling Hollywood strike after a screenwriters walkout earlier this year.
But Rosenberg said talks would continue.
The Screen Actors Guild national negotiating committee is coming to the bargaining table every day in good faith to negotiate a fair contract for actors, he said.
Entertainment industry press have said most major movie studios had already planned their schedules to complete filming on existing projects by Monday.
And television studios were reportedly set to carry on filming episodes for as long as possible to stockpile material in case of a strike.
Complicating the issue is a feud between SAG, with 120,000 members, and the other major actors union, the 70,000-strong American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), after the smaller union gave tentative approval to a deal proposed by the studios.
SAG s leaders say the agreement undermines their own negotiating position, and are aggressively lobbying 44,000 guild members who also belong to AFTRA, urging them to reject the deal when it goes to a vote.
The spat between the two unions has pitted A-list actors against fellow stars, with the likes of Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin siding with AFTRA and Jack Nicholson and Ben Stiller supporting the guild.
The disagreement prompted George Clooney to issue a statement on Thursday calling for unity, saying a split between the unions would only strengthen the position of the studios.
The one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power of the AMPTP, Clooney said.
Rather than pitting artist against artist, maybe we could find a way to get what both unions are looking for.
The screen actors are holding out for higher pay for middle-tier actors, artists earning less than 100,000 a year, and are seeking a greater cut of profits from sales of DVDs and new-media sales.
Studios have said the new actors deal must follow a framework similar to agreements hashed out with screenwriters and directors unions earlier this year, and have accused SAG of making unreasonable demands.
The impasse in negotiations has already affected production on several big-budget projects, most notably Angels & Demons, Sony Pictures sequel to 2006 s The Da Vinci Code.
According to reports, the studio sought to preempt a strike by completing filming on location in Europe by the end of June. – AFP
