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Leaders of SAG and AFTRA are finally coming together...except it's not over the film and primetime television contract. But, their next round of talks, revolving around commercials and advertising industry groups, is a step towards the sister guilds unifying...except both groups give themselves credit for the idea of joint negotiation.

The Hollywood Reporter quotes AFTRA president Roberta Reardon as saying they've been authorized to offer to return to joint negotiations under the terms of the Phase One agreement. Phase One has provided for joint bargaining on all sorts of SAG and AFTRA contracts for decades, but was recently shelved for the film and television talks. According to SAG president Alan Rosenberg though, AFTRA's letter to SAG was in response to an offer SAG made to its sister union in July regarding joint unification on the commercial contract: "'In spite of the fact that AFTRTA did not respond prior to our July 26, 2008, board meeting, as we requested, the SAG national board of directors authorized Screen Actors Guild to participate in a Phase One joint negotiation.'" SAG leaders added "[d]espite our institutional differences -- characterized grossly inaccurately and with great hosility [sic] by you in your letter -- our offer to negotiate together stands. We await your response.'"

These comments come, of course, after an aggressive campaign by SAG to discredit and defeat the AFTRA contract between the union and the studios. AFTRA leaders responded with "'[t]his complaint arises from SAG's wholesale attempts to eliminate AFTRA as a bargaining representative for actors by launching a massive campaign to defeat the ratification of a national collective bargaining agremeent [sic] negotiated by AFTRA, undermining AFTRA's established collective bargaining relationships through raids and the solicitation of grievances and trying to persuade AFTRA employers to take work that historically has been performed under AFTRA contracts and have it performed exclusively under SAG contracts.'" It has also been disclosed that Reardon and Roberts Hedgpeth of AFTRA contracted AFL-CIO president John Sweeney to seek federation mediation in lingering disagreements between the two actors unions. Rosenberg and Allen of SAG said they were open to the idea.