Despite mediation, talks between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have broken down and SAG look like it might strike. The union will now educate its members about the strike referendum and will vote. A strikemust be supported by 75% of SAG’s members.

“We remain committed to avoiding a strike but now more than ever we cannot allow our employers to experiment with our careers,” SAG said in a statement. “The WGA has already learned that the new media terms they agreed to with the AMPTP are not being honored. We cannot allow our employers to undermine the futures of our members and their families.”

The AMPTP also released a statement, saying “The mediation failed for one fundamental reason: SAG continued unrealistically to insist on a substantially better deal than all of the other major Hollywood Guilds and Unions have negotiated so far in 2008. In the end, it was clear that SAG was not serious about using the mediation process to make a deal. Instead, SAG appears to have manipulated the mediation process in an attempt to achieve precisely the result it has wanted all along: A strike by SAG members.”