Aieee, it's alive! Remember Phase One? That's the 27 year old joint bargaining arrangement between SAG and AFTRA that collapsed this spring.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 10.03.2008 | Entertainment
Fitch Ratings, a leading global rating agency that rates the credit of large businesses, municipal governments, and entire industry sectors (they must...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 10.02.2008 | Entertainment
SAG's negotiating committee has the power to send a strike authorization referendum to the membership at large, but it instead punted to the national board.
AP | RYAN NAKASHIMA | Posted 10.02.2008 | Entertainment
LOS ANGELES — The Screen Actors Guild's negotiating committee voted Wednesday to support a strike authorization vote, a tactic meant to break st...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 10.02.2008 | Entertainment
SAG moved closer to a strike today, but not quite as far as some predicted. The guild's negotiating committee, which has the power to send a strike...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 10.01.2008 | Entertainment
SAG's appears to be playing a dangerous game: Seek an authorization and fail to obtain it, and the guild's leverage collapses.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.29.2008 | Entertainment
A key sentence warns "If your intransigence continues, however, our choices become harder and fewer." Whether SAG actually has any leverage to back up those words is unclear.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.22.2008 | Entertainment
The SAG elections are over, and the Unite for Strength challenger slate now has a razor-thin majority on the national SAG Board. Indeed, one of MF's ...
Annabelle Gurwitch | Posted 09.19.2008 | Entertainment
Yesterday brought exciting news for many SAG members who voted to elect candidates endorsed by and representing our interests who banded together to form the group Unite for Strength.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.18.2008 | Entertainment
Sarah Palin may not know what the Bush Doctrine is, but SAG's leadership seems to have forgotten what we might call the (Teddy) Roosevelt Doctrine: s...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.17.2008 | Entertainment
The writers strike settled in February, but in the months since, the Screen Actors Guild has been flying apart at the seams like a rag doll spun through the air by a petulant 2-year-old.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.15.2008 | Entertainment
SAG staggers on, occupied by bitterness and dissension, but with little apparent progress towards a deal with the studios. The last contract expired ...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.06.2008 | Entertainment
The Screen Actors Guild's Board elections are in process. Last week on Look at LA, I interviewed the two large slates of candidates, Membership First...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.05.2008 | Entertainment
I don't mind bar codes, at least when they're on books, boxes, and bags of sugar. When I find them on ballots, though, I get more nervous. That tu...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.03.2008 | Entertainment
Last week, I did live Internet online video interviews on my Look at LA talk show with representatives of Membership First and Unite for Strength, the...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.03.2008 | Entertainment
When will there be a new SAG TV/theatrical contract - i.e., when will the studios and SAG close a deal? My guess: not until January or even February of next year.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 09.03.2008 | Entertainment
What happens if the challengers, Unite for Strength, win control of the SAG National Board? That would effectively happen if UFS (aka U4S) won a ce...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 08.31.2008 | Entertainment
As I've said, if SAG were willing to accept the studios' new media framework, it would more than likely be able to negotiate some of the other issues that matter.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 08.28.2008 | Entertainment
Yesterday, I did live streaming video interviews with SAG candidates and board members from the incumbent, dominant faction, Membership First (represe...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 08.25.2008 | Entertainment
There's a fight for control of the Screen Actors Guild. Elections are going on now, and may determine whether and when the Guild finally reaches a dea...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 08.16.2008 | Entertainment
Note that Nov. 5 will be the one-year anniversary of the start of the writers strike. A great day for a deal, I suppose, or, more darkly, what better time to cripple the industry with another work stoppage?
Jonathan Handel | Posted 08.04.2008 | Entertainment
Three years from now, when the SAG agreement and WGA agreement expire a month apart, the unions may decide to try once again to increase DVD residuals.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 07.24.2008 | Entertainment
A slate called Unite for Strength has arisen to challenge the Membership First faction of the SAG Board. But the slate doesn't have any A-list stars on it, which reduces its chances of successfully wresting control of the Board.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 07.20.2008 | Entertainment
No deal yet between SAG and the studios. This video commentary explores why.
Jonathan Handel | Posted 07.16.2008 | Entertainment
This short press release from the AMPTP (studio alliance) re today's SAG-AMPTP meeting says it all. Not particularly encouraging. And, below, my ana...
WASHINGTON — By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around...
UPDATE: Radar reports that the Secret Service is investigating...
On "Meet the Press" Sunday morning, vice presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill said Palin "more...
The McCain campaign is all set to roll out...
MCCAIN CAMP TALKS 'CHARACTER ASSASSINATION,'
About a year ago, I had a memorable chat with a high-ranking Republican operative. ...
Katie Couric was out shopping in midtown with her daughters...
McCain lobbed attacks on Obama today as the markets were in freefall. Republican
Actor and activist Alec Baldwin appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" Friday night. At several points...
WASHINGTON — The now-bankrupt...
I had an unusual seat for the...
WASHINGTON — Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed...
Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who defied convention...
Jonathan Handel | Posted 10.05.2008 | Entertainment