Actors union moderates maneuvering to oust chief negotiator

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Expect there to be plenty of blood on the floor at tomorrow’s meeting of the national board of the Screen Actors Guild.

As previously reported in the Times, SAG board members at loggerheads with the union’s leadership have been mobilizing to oust the guild’s negotiators, including Doug Allen, who serves as SAG’s chief negotiator and executive director.

That effort has gathered considerable steam in the last week as dissident board members in New York, Hollywood and the union’s various regional branches have reached consensus that drastic action is needed to break the deadlock in contract negotiations with the studios. SAG members have been without a film and TV contract for six months.

Sources close to the situation say moderates within the 120,000-member union, who hold a slight majority on the 71-member board, are expected to introduce a resolution tomorrow to fire Allen. Critics say the former official with the NFL Players Assn. has bungled the negotiations with the studios and has weakened SAG’s leverage by feuding with the smaller actors union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Allen, who has a year remaining on his contract, isn’t expected to go quietly. He has plenty of supporters in Hollywood, including SAG President Alan Rosenberg, who have praised him as a tough negotiator.

In any event, ousting Allen won’t be cheap. The union likely would have to buy out the remainder of his $500,000-a-year contract, as it did when the board fired Allen’s predecessor, Greg Hessinger, more than three years ago.

-- Richard Verrier