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Negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild -- Hollywood's largest actors union -- and the studios have broken down once again, and now SAG is asking for its members to authorize a strike that could produce the second work stoppage to afflict Tinseltown in as many years.

SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers -- the group that collectively represents the studios -- met this past week for the first time since last summer, and even had a federal mediator tag along. However, neither side could come to an agreement, and SAG is now preparing to form picket lines.

"We have already made difficult decisions and sacrifices in an attempt to reach agreement," according to a statement released by SAG on Saturday. "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."

The Writers Guild of America shut down television and movie production just a year ago, lasting 100 days and costing the industry between $380 million and $1.2 billion, depending on which economic expert one talks to.

However, unlike the WGA strike which seemed to have universal support behind it, an actors strike may not be so welcomed. Hollywood is still trying to sort out its movie schedule from the downtime last year, moving some films -- including "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" as well as the new "Star Trek" film -- into mid-2009 to fill some gaps created by the writers strike. At the same time, some analysts are blaming the strike-shortened 2007-08 television season for the struggles of several sophomore-season programs like "Pushing Daisies" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

ABC cancelled "Pushing Daisies" this past week, while "Sarah Connor" teetered on the brink of cancellation, but earned a last-minute reprieve by Fox when it decided to move the show to Fridays and couple it with Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse."

For a strike to happen, SAG's 120,000 members would have to vote, with 75 percent approving -- a process that could take until at least mid-January if it were to start right away. However, a vote likely wouldn't begin until the end of the year, meaning a strike authorization likely wouldn't come until early February.

If then, SAG still can decide whether or not to continue with a strike, and if it did move forward, it likely would only affect a small part of the current television season. However, it would have a detrimental effect on pilot season and the start of production on the 2009-10 season.

Reuters has reported in the past that studios accelerated production schedules in anticipation of a strike, so the damage to the current television season could be even more minimal.

SAG's contract expired last June, and much of the dispute between actors and the studios are similar to what the writers had last year: How are actors going to be compensated for their work in alternative media, such as the Internet.

SAG has struck several times before, and were actually the first Hollywood union to ever strike in 1960. SAG also executed a work stoppage in 1980, which included a boycott of that year's Emmy awards. Only Powers Boothe showed up to get his award, a move he said was either "the most courageous of my career, or the stupidest," according to Wikipedia.

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