SAG: Most members want more talks

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild says more than 87 percent of members who responded to a poll indicated the union should keep negotiating for a new deal.

SAG's contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expired July 1. AMPTP made what it has described as its final offer June 30 but SAG hasn't accepted it.

Other than one sidebar meeting over the summer, the two parties haven't met to discuss a new deal and no negotiations are scheduled.

A SAG statement said it's negotiating committee was given the results of a mail-in poll that indicted 87.27 percent of the 10,298 members who responded said bargaining should continue. the other 12.73 percent said they would accept the June 30 offer.

AMPTP addressed the poll in its own statement, calling the mass postcard mailing by SAG negotiators "a farce" and its results "meaningless."

"The questions were devised to give SAG negotiators only the answer they wanted to hear. The materials accompanying the postcard were hopelessly one-sided," AMPTP said.