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Jan 13, 2008 7:46 pm US/Pacific
SAG Members To Vote On Severing Tie With AFTRA
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
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SAG has 120,000 members, most of them actors.
CBS
A divorce may be looming between the two unions that represent Hollywood performers.
On Sunday, the National Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild announced it will ask its members if SAG should pull out of the longstanding joint negotiating agreement with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
SAG members will be asked to decide if its directors should "negotiate a new, equitable joint bargaining agreement with AFTRA, or if that proves impossible, to allow SAG to independently negotiate the strongest-possible collective bargaining agreement with the industry," according to ballot language.
SAG has 120,000 members, most of them actors. AFTRA, however, represents 70,000 performers, journalists and other artists. Some actors are members of both unions.
The current contract between SAG actors and studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will expire in June.
"In light of the ongoing issues between SAG and AFTRA surrounding joint bargaining of contracts with the AMPTP, it is both prudent and wise to allow the members to chart the course of our union," said SAG National Executive Director Doug Allen.
SAG's national board will announce a date for voting on the referendum sometime between February 15 and March 31.
The current WGA strike is allegedly straining relations between SAG and AFTRA officials.
When talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who belongs to both unions, opted to return to the air, the Writers Guild blasted her for violating strike rules, while AFTRA said DeGeneres actions were covered under AFTRA's "no strike" contract with TV production companies.
SAG threw its weight behind the striking writers last week by declaring that its members would not cross picket lines to attend the Golden Globes ceremony, either as award nominees or presenters.
Organizers then decided to cancel the show and instead hold a live, televised news conference tonight to announce the Globe winners.
That cancellation makes the Golden Globes the first major awards-show casualty of the WGA strike, which started over a dispute focusing on residual payments to writers for work distributed via the Internet, video iPods, cell phones and other new media.
The possible SAG-AFTRA split also comes as the Directors Guild of America begins its contract talks with the studios. If the directors settle on a contract quickly, that could leave the Writers Guild out on a limb. Those talks began Saturday under a news blackout. The DGA contract expires in summer.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
