SAG postpones actors' strike vote

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. Screen Actors Guild said Monday it would postpone a strike vote while it tries to reconcile differences between pro-strike and anti-strike members.

The union had planned to mail ballots Jan. 2 for a strike authorization vote, with results tabulated by Jan. 23. However, the issue have been contentious within SAG, and Doug Allen, the union's national executive director and chief negotiator, posted a message on the guild's Web site Monday saying members of the board were concerned "about the organized opposition to SAG's vote 'yes' campaign to encourage members to authorize" a strike.

"While almost 100 high profile members and 2,524 total members have endorsed the strike authorization vote mandated by the National Board, more than 100 high profile actors and 1,373 actors have lent their names to the opposition campaign," he said.

Allen said he and SAG President Alan Rosenberg would call a board meeting in Los Angeles for Jan. 12 to try to resolve the issue and a strike vote would be held immediately after the meeting.

A "yes" vote by 75 percent of members voting is required to authorize the board to call a strike.

SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have been without a contract since June 30. AMPTP said Monday it hopes to reach a new agreement with the Screen Actors Guild in early 2009.

"The last year has surely been a challenging one, but after long sessions of hard bargaining, all of the guilds and unions in our industry, except one, have reached new labor agreements," AMPTP said in a statement. "These agreements contain meaningful economic increases and first-ever new media rights and residuals."

The producers said they were "proud to have made such important agreements even as the national economic crisis has worsened almost by the day" and urged SAG members to "make an independent decision as to whether it makes sense to strike over a deal that will raise wages, raise benefits, add new residuals and establish jurisdiction in new media for the first time."