I feel like there is not nearly enough discussion about…
The SAG Strike Or Non-Strike
Here is my simple answer. SAG lost their strike the day that WGA struck last November.
I hate to be a dog with an old bone, but the idea of a late year, single guild/union strike is just not viable. I can’t speak for all years past, but I can certainly backup the argument in the current structure of this industry.
For all the rage, union/guild deals with AMPTP are, generally, a matter of process. Small victories are won and lost, but the studio side designs its game to allow for just enough for the guilds/unions so as to avoid painful strikes and/or the destruction of the unions/guilds under the weight of their own efforts to make greater progress.
But right now, we are facing real change, not unlike the United States economy. The cycle of getting fat and then being forced into severe fiscal diets has gone on for years, but the deep pockets of conglomerates have made it all too easy to overreach and now, is making the reductions that much more profound.
The evolution of online media is both a red herring and a major issue. But the unions have not been good about making the distinction between one and another, leaking either money or sympathy out of either side of the discussion.
The problem for SAG, from the start of the strike season, is that digital, in the form of reruns, is a real life and death issue of the community of working actors who are just barely hanging on. WGA was, to a great extent, worrying about making a good living. A significant number of SAG members are facing a much more direct threat to paying rent and having health insurance.
But all of this is now in the rearview mirror.
SAG couldn’t get WGA to wait… to develop a unified front… and now they are the last union negotiating. Nothing SAG achieves could have any direct effect on the other unions/guilds for years. So none of their goals will play as being in the name of the industry, only of actors.
The timing could not have been worse for SAG in terms of the ongoing civil war inside the guild. Alan Rosenberg and his followers are virtually forced to take the hardest line, because the reality is that if they show any weakness, the “other side” will regain control of the union, there will be an AFTRA merger, and the very real concerns that Team Rosenberg has about the contract extension that AFTRA already agreed to, will become the law, and an entire slice of working actors are likely to be pushed out of the profession for financial reasons.
Of course, people don’t want to think about all that. They just want to know… is there going to be a strike and will it mess with their life’s pleasures?
And the answer has to be, I don’t know.
What I do know is that a SAG strike will not be successful in achieving anything that is not already on the table or that AMPTP is already prepared to put on the table.
In my opinion, what SAG needs to do, at this point, is to pick some very achievable goals and to start promotion in the media to make their demands accessible. There is ZERO support out there for this strike right now. And SAG desperately needs the industry not to be just wondering about a strike and whether it will hurt the Oscars (in reality, this did nothing to move things along for WGA), but questioning why AMPTP won’t just make a few more concessions so that everyone can go back to work with confidence.
My fear is that Team Rosenberg, feeling cornered, will look at WGA – which didn’t get a deal that helped SAG achieve its goals – at least moving forward and authorize a poorly conceived strike. We may have already passed the point where SAG can avoid being eaten by AFTRA. But burning down the house is not going make things any better.
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/12/the_real_issue.html