Well, it didn’t take long for Nick and his Fat Cats to reject the SAG Memberships request for a return to formal talks.
The following is the AMPTP official response to SAG’s entreaty.
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September 29, 2008
Re: Screen Actors Guild Negotiations
Dear Alan and Doug:
This is in response to your letter dated September 29, 2008 to Peter Chernin, Robert Iger and me. Your letter indicates that the Screen Actors Guild is not prepared to change its position on any of the threshold issues in our negotiations. The Guild’s position remains unchanged since we last met on July 16, 2008. Further, in addition to new media, there are a number of significant issues which, in and of themselves, prevent the parties from reaching agreement.
Our Final Offer to the Screen Actors Guild is comparable to our agreements with the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and AFTRA. Our Final Offer memorializes a set of compromises, including in the area of new media, worked out with other Guilds and Unions and particularly addresses actor specific issues raised during the Screen Actors Guild negotiations.
We do not believe that it would be productive to resume negotiations at this time given SAG’s continued insistence on terms which the Companies have repeatedly rejected.
In light of the unprecedented economic difficulties facing our industry and the nation, the Companies continue to hope that the Guild’s leadership will recognize the five major labor agreements that have already been concluded this year and will accept our Final Offer while it remains on the table.
We want to reemphasize that we value greatly our industry’s talent – the directors, writers, actors, and below-the-line people who create entertainment products for audiences around the world – and hope that our Final Offer can serve as the basis of an agreement.
Sincerely,
J. Nicholas Counter III
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Nick obviously is counting on New York’s USAN board members, the branches, and Hollywood’s newly elected UFS party to contiune backing him and his producer pals with their employer friendly rhetoric that SAG’s goals are unattainable.
Which is rather comical, when you consider that most of those unatainable goals are simply rollbacks in force majeure, clip consent, only, at time of use, and a ban against signatories doing non-union productions were attained long ago and have been in SAG’s agreement with employers for decades.
A.L. Miller SW Editor & Chief 
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Nick and his Fat Cats reject returning to formal talks 
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