SAG asks AMPTP to resume talks

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild Monday asked the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to resume contract negotiations.

Alan Rosenberg, SAG's national president, and Doug Allen, the guild's national executive director and chief negotiator, posted on the organization's Web site a letter to AMPTP President J. Nicholas Counter III; Peter Chernin, president of Fox Group; and Robert Iger, president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Co.

"We believe it is clear that our members would fail to ratify your proposal of June 30, 2008," the letter said. "It would serve no productive purpose, therefore, to send our membership a proposal that SAG's national negotiating committee and national board have rejected and that our membership would not ratify. It is our fervent hope that this news will encourage you and your colleagues to re-engage in formal bargaining, with the exchange of proposals and compromise by both sides necessary to reach an agreement. ... We are prepared to meet formally and continuously until we reach agreement."

AMPTP swiftly declined the invitation to go back to the bargaining table.

"We do not believe that it would be productive to resume negotiations at this time given SAG's continued insistence on terms which the companies have repeatedly rejected," AMPTP said in a statement. "Your letter indicates ... (SAG) is not prepared to change its position on any of the threshold issues in our negotiations. The guild's position remains unchanged since we last met on July 16, 2008."

AMPTP made what it described as its final offer June 30. The last SAG-AMPTP contract expired July 1.