Awards season is in danger yet again as federally-negotiated talks between the AMPTP and SAG broke down last week, according to Variety, which will prompt the SAG leadership to ask its members if they want to go on strike.
The name-calling started immediately, with the AMPTP calling SAG leaders (warning: PDF enclosed) “out of touch with reality” with regards to the touchy economic situation that the huge conglomerates are finding themselves in, mostly because most studio funding comes from banks — which everyone knows are in a little bit of trouble these days.
However, one tidbit from the SAG notice on that section of their website points to why the SAG leaders and negotiators may be insisting on a better deal than what everyone else has gotten this year:
We remain committed to avoiding a strike but now more than ever we cannot allow our employers to experiment with our careers. The WGA has already learned that the new media terms they agreed to with the AMPTP are not being honored…. (emphasis mine)
This casts an entirely different light on SAG for me now, because if they’re not budging because the conglomerates are reneging on the contract details that everyone else received — or worse yet, there’s a loophole in the signed contract that anticipated this economic crisis — then that’s all the reason one would need to attempt to negotiate for a better contract than what was left on the table this summer.
Time to do some reading up on these contracts…
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