The Screen Actors Guild is headed for another momentous week in the wake of the firing of national exec director Doug Allen and replacing its negotiating committee on Jan. 26.
SAG's new feature-primetime negotiating committee, dubbed a task force with senior adviser John McGuire as chief negotiator, will meet Tuesday and Wednesday with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers -- nearly a year after the congloms first announced that they were ready to start bargaining with SAG. Both sides moved into a news blackout last week after disclosing the meetings.
SAG's now headed by interim national exec director David White, installed at the behest of the national's board's moderate majority via written assent after the minority Membership First temporarily thwarted that move via a 28-hour filibuster three weeks ago. White's plea for unity, issued on his first day of work at SAG, doesn't seem have stopped the infighting.
Membership First, which still holds 47% of the board's seats, is still stinging from Allen's ouster and isn't going away quietly. It will hold a rally Monday afternoon outside SAG headquarters in advance of the Hollywood Division's board meeting Monday night.
Membership First -- which has long contended that the AMPTP's seven-month-old final offer is unacceptable -- has labeled Allen's ouster a "takeover" and complained that moderate majority won't properly represent the interests of Hollywood members at the bargaining table.
"This group is labeled in the press as the SAG National Board Majority, but what is never mentioned, is that 85% of them are from NY and the branches, while only 15% are Hollywood board members," the group said. "Also, what is never mentioned in the pro producer media is that only 15% of the Hollywood board supported this takeover."
Membership First asserted that 75% of the TV/Theatrical work is done by Hollywood SAG members. It had been in power since the 2005 elections, when president Alan Rosenberg won the presidency, but lost its margin last fall when Unite For Strength gained five national seats and 15 alternate slots.
"We need to remind those who conceded control of SAG to New York and the branches, especially the UFS board members, that WE ARE THE UNION," the faction said.
Rosenberg has been particularly bitter over Allen's ouster and accused the moderates of sabotaging the negotiations. For their part, the moderates have contended that not only was Allen beholden to Membership First; they also have alleged that he was strategically incompetent in leaving SAG with no deal after seven amid diminishing leverage.
SAG last met with the AMPTP in two days of mediation in November, but those talks cratered after the guild demanded a hike in DVD residuals -- long a nonstarter for the congloms. That failure led to the guild announcing it was sending out a strike authorization, a move that split the board and ultimately led to Allen's ouster.
Contact Dave McNary at
dave.mcnary@variety.com