Thursday 4 September 2008

Tensions mount inside actors union over contract

LOS ANGELES () - Tensions within the Screen Actors Guild mounted on Monday as the union's Hollywood-based leadership rejected a call by SAG's New York branch to bring in a federal mediator to break a dead end in contract talks with major studios.





Members of the New York regional board also publicly challenged the assertions of SAG president of the United States Alan Rosenberg and tribal chief negotiator Doug Allen that the sum is retention informal negotiation with studio representatives in a bid to fill up a deal.





And they accused SAG negotiators, in a resolution passed unanimously net week by the 23-member New York board, of "failing to bargain realistically ... and move out unattainable items from the table."





"There's no discernible be after here," New York division board fellow member Paul Christie told . "You can't have a design that just now says, 'We're holding occult meetings.' And our question is just what the hell does that mean?"





Rosenberg condemned the resolving power as "political" in nature and "an attempt to damage SAG's negotiations."





The sharply worded exchanges on Sunday and Monday further heightened a ontogenesis internal split over the seven-week-old contract stalemate.





"SAG really is a union divided," said amusement lawyer Jonathan Handel, a former co-counsel for the Writers Guild of America with ties to both Hollywood lying-in and management.





A moderate sect within SAG's Hollywood branch recently launched a effort to wrest control of the knock-down union from the Rosenberg-led Membership First coalition in national board elections place for September 18.�






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