The big picture: SAG strike won't play

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By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN / Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD — For years, people in Hollywood have casually dismissed the Screen Actors Guild as the craziest union in creation. Apparently, they weren’t exaggerating.

After getting nowhere during months of on-again, off-again talks with the studios, SAG has now opted to pursue a strike authorization vote from its 120,000 members. (The union has been working without a contract since June 30.) If this is meant as some kind of threat designed to drag the studios back to the negotiating table, SAG is even more deluded than anyone believed possible.

SAG’s goal is pretty obvious. The guild hopes that by getting a strike mandate from its membership — a strike referendum requires 75 percent approval from members who cast ballots — it can use the threat of a disruption of the Academy Awards to force studios to negotiate a better deal. But according to most insiders I have spoken to, no one takes the threat seriously — they don’t believe the strike will happen. Why not?

1) As James Carville once famously said: It’s the economy, stupid. As it is, most SAG members don’t work regularly, at least not at acting. They’ve got real jobs, whether it’s at Starbucks, waiting tables, doing construction, teaching or running small businesses. Whatever the gig, they know — like the rest of us know — that the economy is in the toilet. No one wants to risk losing the jobs they have that actually pay the bills. So, fewer people have the pie-in-the-sky attitude that usually fuels SAG strike votes from all those members who aren’t working TV or film jobs. Normally they’d say, What have I got to lose by a strike? I’m not working anyway. But too many members are clinging to their side jobs, which has a sobering effect on anyone considering the value of a misguided strike.

2) I was a vocal supporter of the Writers Guild of America strike because I felt it was in the right. The writers weren’t asking for the moon, and the studios, having boasted for so long about their profitability, had the money to give. But in the midst of a dire economic crisis, SAG is asking for concessions that no other union received in their negotiations last winter. They have been standing firm in seeking an increase in acting residuals from DVD sales, a demand that the studios will never agree to. It's unrealistic to expect that SAG members will join the guild leadership in what is obviously a kamikaze mission.

3) The WGA was united. The actors are doses new state spending, but wants to sell bonds for water projects — something Republicans have:pursued unsuccessfully for several years.

“It’s going to create jobs,” he said. Water “is so much part of our economy, not only for my district, but our state.”

Democrats gained three seats in the Assembly, giving them a 51-29 majority. The Senate will likely remain divided 25-15 in favor of Democrats. One race where a Republican leads has not been officially called.

Overall, the new class isn’t likely to bring much change, said Quinn, who analyzes legislative elections. With districts drawn to protect incumbent parties, winning candidates tend to hold ideological views, he said.

For instance, several incoming Republicans, including Gilmore, have already signed a “no new taxes” pledge, administered by Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C., led by anti-tax icon Grover Norquist. Conway said she doesn’t believe in signing pledges but that she is against tax hikes.

Many new Democrats, on the other hand, got big campaign contributions from left-leaning interest groups.

“Democrats won’t take on unions,” Quinn said. And “the Republicans won’t take on the anti-tax groups. There’s not room for compromise.”

State budget expert Fred Silva is a bit more optimistic. Many of the new members are former local government officials, who “tend to be more fiscally prudent,” said Silva, a former legislative aide and adviser to California Forward, a good-government group.

With state and local tax collections dwindling, lawmakers will be forced to enact wholesale changes in how the state collects and distributes revenue, he said.

“The state revenue isn’t going to be there and the property tax isn’t going to be there,” Silva said. “That’s a crisis that argues for a larger dialogue about the state and local relationship.”

One budget proposal floated by Gov. Schwarzenegger would broaden the state sales tax to cover more services. There’s also talk of examining ways to make government more efficient, though such efforts haven’t produced many results in the past.