Another Hollywood Strike Looming…

Remember this post? I called it!

What I find interesting is how much leverage those actors that carry both union cards will have. 44,000 actors are members of AFTRA and SAG, which is more than half of AFTRA’s membership. I hope a strike really doesn’t happen, as that will delay film and television production, and cause more complications between AFTRA and SAG.

clipped from community.tvguide.com After months of talks, AFTRA’s national committee on Friday voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of a tentative actors’ contract with the AMPTP that was reached May 28. Following the thumbs-up vote, the deal goes out to the 70,000 members for ratification, says the Reporter. Yet, despite the warm fuzzies AFTRA’s feeling over what negotiating committee member David Basche calls a “damn good” deal — with fee increases that he says are some of the first in a decade — SAG rained some demands on the parade. Screen Actors Guild leaders asked AFTRA on Thursday to delay member ratification, asserting that the deal would “distract” the industry from SAG’s leverage in working out their own contract, ostensibly for the benefit of all actors. Of course, there’s the added complication of some cross-organizational factions that are said to be largely split between coasts — and they can’t even rap about it. SAG’s hoping dual card-carrying members (there are about 44,000 of them) vote against the AFTRA deal,