The Screen Actors Guild said Saturday it will ask its members to authorize a strike after its first contract talks in four months with Hollywood studios failed despite the help of a federal mediator.

The guild said it adjourned talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers shortly before 1 a.m. local time in Los Angeles after two marathon sessions with federal mediator Juan Carlos Gonzalez.

'They're asking us to bless a system we believe would be the beginning of the end of residuals'—SAG national director Doug Allen

SAG, representing more than 120,000 actors in movies, television and other media, said in a statement that it will launch a "full-scale education campaign in support of a strike authorization."

"We have already made difficult decisions and sacrifices in an attempt to reach agreement," the statement said. "Now it's time for SAG members to stand united and empower the national negotiating committee to bargain with the strength of a possible work stoppage behind them."

"They're asking us to bless a system we believe would be the beginning of the end of residuals, and that's a very scary thought for working actors," said Doug Allen, SAG's national executive director and chief negotiator.

The producers alliance condemned the SAG decision and said it remains the only major Hollywood guild without a labour deal this year.

"Now, SAG is bizarrely asking its members to bail out the failed negotiating strategy with a strike vote — at a time of historic economic crisis," a producers statement said.

"The tone-deafness of SAG is stunning."

SAG's national board had already authorized its negotiating committee to call for a strike authorization vote if mediation failed.

The vote would take more than a month and require more than 75 per cent approval to pass.

Internet payments at core of dispute

SAG is seeking union coverage for all internet-only productions regardless of budget and residual payments for internet productions replayed online, as well as continued actor protections during work stoppages.

But the AMPTP said it was untenable for SAG to demand a better deal than what writers, directors and another actors union — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) — accepted earlier in the year, especially now that the economy has worsened.

SAG and AFTRA severed ties with each other earlier this year. The two organizations have been at odds over what performers should be demanding. AFTRA has 70,000 members representing, among others, actors, singers, announcers and journalists.

Earlier this week, the producers group said it had reached its sixth labor deal this year, a tentative agreement on a three-year contract with the local branches of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts, accounting for 35,000 workers.

The stagehands alliance accepted Internet provisions that were modelled on agreements with other unions, the producers group said.

Actors in prime-time television shows and movies have been working under the terms of a contract that expired June 30, with the hope of avoiding a repeat of last winter's 100-day writers strike that shut down production of dozens of TV shows and cost the Los Angeles area economy an estimated $2.5 billion US.