SAG rejects producers' proposal

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. Screen Actors Guild says it has rejected the "last, best and final offer" the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers made last week.

SAG announced late Saturday that its national board of directors had voted 73 percent to 27 percent to reject what AMPTP has described as its "last, best and final offer." The previous SAG-AMPTP pact expired June 30, 2008. Contract negotiations had stalled for months, but briefly resumed last week.

"We entered this round of negotiations sending an unmistakably clear message that we were ready to make a deal. In an effort to put the town back to work, our negotiator agreed to modify the guild's bargaining position to bring the guild in line with the deals made by our sister unions," SAG said in a statement. "The AMPTP's last-minute, surprise demand for a new term of agreement extending to 2012 is regressive and damaging and clearly signals the employers' unwillingness to agree to the deal they established with other entertainment unions. ... By attempting to extend our contract expiration one year beyond the other entertainment unions, the AMPTP intends to de-leverage our bargaining position from this point forward."

"The producers' offer is strong and fair -- and has been judged to be strong and fair by all of Hollywood's other major guilds and unions," AMPTP said in a separate statement. "We simply cannot offer SAG a better deal than the rest of the industry achieved under far better economic conditions than those now confronting our industry."