MUMBAI: The Screen Actors Guild (Sag) will hold a town hall meeting in Los Angeles on 17 November in the evening. Sag is seeking a strike authorisation vote from its members and ballots go out next month.

Sag notes that the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) has failed to address the needs of actors at the bargaining table despite the efforts of the negotiating team and the intervention of a federal mediator.

A Sag statement says, "Your national negotiating committee has directed that a strike authorisation ballot be sent to paid up Sag members for their consideration and approval.

"This Town Hall meeting will give Hollywood members an update on the negotiations and a chance to ask questions about the upcoming strike authorization ballot referendum. A strike authorisation from Sag members will show the AMPTP that the unique needs of actors cannot be addressed by a pattern of bargaining. Actors needs must be addressed for deal to be made."

The AMPTP says that it hopes that working actors will study its contract offer carefully and come to the conclusion that no strike can solve the problems that have been created by Sag's own failed negotiation strategy.

Meanwhile, several top actors including George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Cameron Diaz and Edward Norton have signed a letter that is being circulated among Sag's membership. The letter looks to persuade actors not to give the authorisation to the Sag board to strike.

"We feel very strongly that Sag members should not vote to authorise a strike at this time. We don''t think that an authorisation 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.

"None of our friends in the other unions are truly happy with the deals they made in their negotiations. Three years from now all the union contracts will be up again at roughly the same time. At that point if we plan and work together with our sister unions we will have incredible leverage," the letter says.