The Screen Actors Guild is starting 2009 with a civil war raging over a possible strike.

SAG’s moderate wing plans to replace the guild’s negotiating committee — and possibly fire national exec director Doug Allen — in hopes of breaking the contract stalemate with the majors.

While much of the town’s been shut down for the past two weeks, SAG’s internal firefight over its divisive strike authorization vote has escalated. Allen and SAG president Alan Rosenberg have spurned calls to ditch the authorization vote but agreed Dec. 22 to delay it until after a Jan. 12-13 emergency meeting of the national board in order to present a united front to members.

But the moderates have grown increasingly frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of response from SAG toppers and are poised to begin moving to make SAG more pragmatic — three months after gaining control of the 71-member board over the more aggressive Membership First faction, which still dominates the negotiating committee.

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