Actors contract talks may be stalled for weeks

SAG‘s rejection of the AMPTP‘s “last, best and final” offer has led people in the industry to think that contract talks could be stalled for weeks.

And now those said “experts” think the studios have the upper hand.

Here’s part of the article:

“SAG is going to have to either make some concessions on some issues, or they’re going to have to go to their members and get them to vote for a strike,” said Mark Litwak, an entertainment attorney monitoring the contract talks.

But a strike is unlikely because SAG’s internal debate over that subject led to the ouster of chief negotiator Doug Allen.

“What the hardliners among the studios want is a Screen Actors Guild unable to strike and unable to negotiate with any real leverage,” said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorney and former co-counsel with the Writers Guild of America.

The latest stumbling block is the studio’s insistence on changing the contract start date to when it is signed, instead of retroactively to the June 30, 2008 end of the old labor deal.

SAG has rejected that idea because doing so would put its contract out of sync with sister unions and weaken future bargaining power. Industry watchers say SAG could keep working under its old contract until 2011 when the Writers Guild of America and AFTRA will be up for new deals. Joining with either of those two would boost all the unions’ negotiating leverage.

But experts said that scenario is unlikely, too, as actors and studios would both suffer for years. The studios risk jeopardizing financing for movie projects, and SAG would see its members lose out on the benefits of a new deal the studio’s say is $250 million richer than the old one.

Handel said negotiations could remain stalled until at least the middle of March as the two sides jointly begin new contract talks with advertisers for commercial work.

“I would like to think that saner heads prevail and that we’ll have an agreement before the end of the year,” said David Ginsburg, a UCLA professor of entertainment and media law.