How's this for happy holiday cheer? The Screen Actors Guild is gearing up to ask members to authorize a strike. Yes, that's right. The actors' union leadership -- headed up by Alan Rosenberg -- is talking tough and threatening another strike. It's been nearly a year since the Writer's Guild strike and the ramifications are still being felt throughout the TV business. An actors strike would be crippling.

Currently, SAG is working under a contract that expired on June 30. The WGA strike began on November 5, 2007 and was finally settled on February 12, 2008. Rosenberg and SAG knew how damaging the strike had been, and in the months before June 30, they tried for a settlement. They didn't get it done then, and they've been treading water ever since.

Have you seen all those feel-good commercials on CBS showing the actors returning to work after the WGA strike, the message promising us that good times -- and fresh new episodes -- would soon be on the air? Well, here comes the cold shower. The big story this morning out of L.A. is that Hollywood is shaking with fear that the actors will strike this summer if a new contract isn't hammered out before June 30.

Big names like George Clooney and Tom Hanks have been quietly urging Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg to commence negotiations now in hopes of averting another contentious battle. Even AFTRA (SAG's sister organization, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) reportedly wants to start formal talks.