SAG leaders explain strike authorization

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Screen Actors Guild leaders in Los Angeles are trying to allay members' concerns that if they vote to authorize a strike it means a walkout would be inevitable.

SAG President Alan Rosenberg and Doug Allen, the union's chief negotiator and national executive director, sent an e-mail to members Thursday explaining how the process would play out, The Hollywood Reporter said Friday.

"It is important to note that if passed by a majority of the national board, the resolution does not call a strike," they wrote. "It only provides for a membership referendum to be conducted, which will take approximately 30-45 days."

If there is a referendum, it would take a 75 percent majority of voting members to approve a strike, they said.

SAG's negotiating committee decided Oct. 1 to have the national board decide whether to go to the membership for strike authorization.

The industry's producers responded Friday by saying SAG negotiators "seem determined to force another unnecessary, harmful strike."

"Why else would SAG negotiators be unreasonably insisting, at a time of national economic collapse, on a better deal than the ones achieved by the other Hollywood Guilds much earlier this year, during much better economic times?" the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers asked.