Possible Actor's Strike

[rossbondreturns]

Feb 3, 2009 15:35:48 GMT -5 gothamite66 said:

Feb 3, 2009 15:29:19 GMT -5 cyadon said:

Christ, All Mighty, what do you have to do to get things finished in that town?

You don't really want to know, do you?

It involves snakes and sacrifices.

[rossbondreturns]

www.variety.com/article/VR1117999497.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

Sorry Rosenberg try again.

[gothamite66]

The TRO was rejected for technical errors only. They can easily correct their mistakes by adding the proper causes of action and properly serving notice to the defendents. It's not difficult to correct and then they re-file on Thursday.

If his goal was to stall negotiations, then Rosenberg has succeeded stalling the negotiations for another week.

[rossbondreturns]

Proving once again that he doesn't have the best wishes of the Guilod he so crappily RESENTS...oh...erm represents in mind.

Move aside dude...You ain't done squat for me.

[cyadon]

The TRO request and lawsuit were rejected completely today by the circuit judge, citing that the majority acted completely legally within guild by laws. An appeal is very unlikely to succeed.

I think this is over. They're already talking about rescheduling talks for next week and the AMPTP is very likely to give some concessions to get a contract signed now that the biggest non-starter proposals will now be off the table with Doug Allen's firing.

[rossbondreturns]

Thank God.

[gothamite66]

I read the decision a little differently...

The judge denied it because he thought Rosenberg's suit was "unlikely to succeed on its merits." He then stated that Rosenberg "would suffer 'rreparable harm' by not being granted the temporary restraining order".

To me, this indicates that the judge took the easy way out by giving Rosenberg the incentive to appeal the decision. This way, Rosenberg's attorney's will appeal the decision and the appellate court will have to take the heat not the trial court. Chalfant chickened out of the decision and has left it up to the appeals process. It's been done before.

And all this probably on the union members dollar.

oops forgot the link

Variety

[rossbondreturns]

Oh FFS Rosenberg...just give it up.

Let us move the bloody hell on and get things going in the right direction.

If you couldn't tell this totally pisses me off.

[vicheron]

I'm surprised that this isn't getting more coverage. With all the companies going bankrupt and looking for bailouts, here we have one industry that's actually doing pretty well. Not only is the entertainment industry profitable but it employs a lot of people, it actually exports products, and it improves the image of the United States overseas. You'd think that more people would want this still profitable industry to continue being successful.

[rossbondreturns]

www.variety.com/article/VR1118000158.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

Denied...again.

Alan Rosenberg's struck out again in court in his attempt to overturn recent moves by SAG's national board to fire Doug Allen and abolish SAG's negotiating committee.

A three-judge appeals court panel on Friday denied the SAG prexy's request for an expedited ruling to overturn last week's ruling by a state court judge James Chalfant turning down Rosenberg's request for a temporary restraining order. Judges Norman Epstein, Thomas Willhite and Nora Manella issued the one-sentence denial.

"The petition for writ of mandate filed February 11, 2009, has been read and considered and is denied for failure to demonstrate entitlement to extraordinary relief," the ruling read.

Both the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers had already brushed off the threat from Rosenberg's suit, in the wake of Chalfant's ruling. The two sides plan to resume feature-primetime contract talks on Tuesday with a new SAG task force in place and John McGuire replacing Allen as SAG's chief negotiator.

Rosenberg's attorneys were not immediately available for comment on Friday. But the appeals court ruling leaves Rosenberg and his three fellow plaintiffs -- board members Anne-Marie Johnson, Diane Ladd and Kent McCord -- with having to wait much longer for a court to find in their favor, either through the appeals process or by having the lawsuit go to trial.

SAG had been set to hold talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers on Feb. 3 and 4 for the first time since November, but those talks were delayed after Rosenberg launched his legal fight.

Chalfant ruled on Feb. 5 against Rosenberg's request for a court order. Rosenberg had filed the lawsuit on Feb. 3 against SAG and the 41 board members who used a "written assent" maneuver on Jan. 26 to pass a resolution ousting Allen and the negotiating committee.

SAG's "bylaws permit the board to do exactly what it did," said Chalfant, who also said that he could not grant the order because Rosenberg's suit is unlikely to succeed on its merits.

SAG's board, which switched to a moderate majority last fall, fired Allen and ousted the negotiating committee for a second time last Sunday in order to make Rosenberg's lawsuit moot. Rosenberg led a 28-hour filibuster at the last SAG board meeting on Jan. 12-13 to block a vote on the resolution, prompting the moderates to take the "written assent" route.

Rosenberg has alleged that the moderate majority had violated state corporate law and guild bylaws, particularly SAG's requirement that individual committee members may be replaced only by a two-thirds vote of the board. But Chalfant found the SAG board needed only a simple majority to eliminate the negotiating committee, which was dominated by Rosenberg supporters.

Rosenberg's attorneys also said the creation of a task force was a "Back door" scheme to get around the two-third requirement. But SAG's outside attorney, Daniel Alberstone, pointed out at the Feb. 5 hearing that the task force has a different role than the negotiating committee. Alberstone noted that the negotiating committee was assigned to seek a strike authorization from members if negotiations failed; the task force is simply assigned to make a recommendation to the national board.

Chalfant also spurned Rosenberg's attempt to overturn the board's move to declare that only interim national exec David White and senior adviser John McGuire can speak on behalf of SAG. The jurist disagreed that the new rule is a "gag order," since it doesn't prevent Rosenberg from speaking publicly.

Besides an injunction, the suit seeks legal fees but no monetary damages.

[rossbondreturns]

Well well well...

www.variety.com/article/VR1118002545.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

SAG, AMPTP reach tentative deal
Guild's national board expected to approve
By DAVE MCNARY

In a move that had been widely expected, SAG leaders and the congloms have reached a tentative agreement on a new two-year feature-primetime contract -- opening the door for a pitched battle over ratification.

Announcement of the tentative deal came Friday afternoon, nearly 10 months after the previous pact expired, via a brief joint statement from the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The last major point to be settled centered on SAG insisting on an expiration date in June 2011 in order to stay in synch with the WGA, DGA and AFTRA expirations. Three days of official talks cratered in mid-February over the expiration date - even though both sides had agreed on other issues -- with the companies demanding a three-year deal that would have expired in 2012.

The statement said that no details would be disclosed until Sunday following review by SAG's national board at its previously scheduled meeting. That panel, which saw control shift last fall to a moderate coalition, is expected to approve the terms of the pact and trigger the mailing of ratification ballots to its 120,000 members.

The ratification process will take about three weeks. SAG president Alan Rosenberg and his allies in the hardline Membership First faction, which lost its board majority to the moderates, has vowed it will urge members to vote down the deal on grounds that it falls short in on on multitude of areas, particularly new media.

The deal comes following two months of back-channels talks between SAG toppers and moguls such as Disney's Robert Iger and Warner Bros. Barry Meyer with SAG's chief negotiator John McGuire and AMPTP exec VP Carol Lombardini executing the specifics of the new pact. SAG's board ousted Doug Allen in January as SAG national exec director for allegedly botching the negotiations, replacing him with David White as interim national exec director and McGuire as chief negotiator.

Membership First has been protesting the presumed deal ever since Allen was fired and the negotiating committee was abolished and replaced with a task force. Scott Wilson, a SAG member who was on the negotiating committee, told Daily Variety that he'll continue advocating a "no" vote in order to persuade the companies to sweeten the terms.

"If all that's been changed is the term of the deal, it is up to the members to step up and claim their union by voting this down," he said.

The AMPTP's counter on its website asserted Thursday that SAG actors have lost $66.6 million in pay gains as a result of spurning the final offer, which it valued at $250 million. The counter had been taken down on Friday.

SAG members have worked since the expiration under terms and conditions of the expired deal.