Actors Guild President Vows to Move Forward With Strike Vote

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aYyc7pwnH54U&refer=us

By Michael White

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg vowed to press ahead with a strike-authorization vote, after defeating an executive board effort to kill the measure and oust the union’s chief negotiator.

No date was set to send out ballots on the strike authorization, Rosenberg said in an interview yesterday after the two-day meeting ended in Los Angeles. “We’re confident we can get the 75 percent majority” that is required.

Rosenberg and supporters used procedural maneuvers to prevent a new board majority from replacing Guild Executive Director Doug Allen in his negotiating role. The Unite for Strength group also sought to dissolve the negotiating team. The dispute threatens to tear apart the 120,000-member union, whose contract talks with film and television studios stalled in June.

“The risk is a fracture that cannot be repaired,” said Steve Diamond, a labor-law professor at Santa Clara University in California. There is little chance guild members will approve a strike authorization, he said.

The meeting at the guild’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters started Jan. 12 at 9 a.m. local time and was scheduled to break at 10 p.m., then resume yesterday until 1 p.m.

FULL story at link.