Things were already tense between the two unions that represent Hollywood actors.
But now the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) will lobby members who also belong to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), to try to get them to vote “no” on the deal that AFTRA has negotiated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
It appears as though SAG is attempting to sabotage AFTRA’s deal because SAG claims that the proposed agreement isn’t good enough for actors.
The pressure is on because SAG is facing a fast approaching deadline involving its present contract with the studios. The current agreement expires June 30, 2008.
SAG plans to launch what it calls an “educational campaign” to oppose the AFTRA deal. AFTRA has fired back at SAG, calling its actions “unprecedented interference in the internal affairs of another union.”
SAG is the bigger union, with 122,000 members to AFTRA’s 70,000.
Plenty of screen actors look down on recording artists, radio and television announcers, and actors who work on daytime soaps and cable television news shows.
Forty-four thousand actors carry membership cards for both unions. These are the folks SAG is trying to persuade to vote down the AFTRA deal.
Personally, I’m a member of AFTRA, but I can sympathize with SAG’s hoity-toity, overbearing and puffed up point of | 
