Hollywood Heavyweights Speak Out Against SAG Strike Vote

More than 130 of Hollywood's biggest stars have united to send a petition to SAG's top brass against the union's strike authorization vote.

George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey, Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Charlize Theron and Morgan Freeman are just a few of the heavyweights who lent their names to the letter, which they sent on Monday to SAG president Alan Rosenberg and national executive director Doug Allen, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"We feel very strongly that SAG members should not vote to authorize a strike at this time," the letter said. "We don't think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it is — an agreement to strike if negotiations fail."
"We support our union and we support the issues we're fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work."

Contract negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and producers have been stalled for months, causing public statements to be volleyed back and forth among the Guild, AFTRA(American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) — the smaller of the two actors unions — and the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).

The star actors' group petition was sent just prior to a Guild member town hall meeting in New York, where Rosenberg and other leaders were expected to make their case for a strike authorization. It's the latest evidence of an increasingly wide rift opening up within membership in recent weeks, during which the Guild's New York board also came against holding a strike authorization vote. 

Do you agree with the actors who spoke out against the vote? Or should they be toeing the Guild line?