A vote by the leaders of the Screen Actors Guild on Sunday has simultaneously ratcheted up negotiation efforts and the possibility of strike.
The guild’s national board of directors voted to formally request a federal mediator for stalled contract talks with studios and, at the same time, agreed to ask members if they want to authorize a strike.
The resolution “authorizes a referendum and accompanying educational information be sent to the members requesting their authorization for the National Board to call a strike” if negotiations fail.
If 75 percent of SAG’s 120,000 members vote in favor of a labor action, it would then be left to the national negotiating committee to call the strike if it deems it necessary.
“We hope mediation will help move this process forward. This action by the board demonstrates our commitment to bargain with the strength of our unified membership behind us,” said Screen Actors Guild Nation al President Alan Rosenberg in a statement.
SAG’s chief negotiator Doug Allen said the union’s goal remains securing a good contract without a strike.
Actors in prime-time television and movies have been working under the terms of a contract that expired June 30, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 100-day writers strike that ended in February. That strike cost the Los Angeles area economy an estimated $2.5 billion.
The studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said recently that, considering the current economic turmoil, it is “unrealistic for SAG negotiators now to expect even better terms during this grim financial climate.”
Phone calls seeking comment on Sunday from the alliance were not immediately returned.
The actors guild wants union coverage of all shows made for the Internet, and residual payments for actors on made-for-Internet shows. It also demands protections for actors during work stoppages.
The alliance has stuck by a final offer it made June 30, which it said mirrored deals accepted by directors, a smaller actors union called the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and writers following their strike.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More