More than 130 actors signed a letter urging their colleagues from the Screen Actors Guild to reject a strike-authorization vote scheduled on January 2. George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman are just a few of the A-listers who have no interest in launching a strike into the headwinds of a brutal recession.

“We don’t think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it is — an agreement to strike if negotiations fail,” said the letter. The other signees of the letter, which also called for SAG to unite with other unions in three years, include Steve Carell, Diane Lane, Kevin Spacey, Helen Mirren, Alan Alda and Sally Field.

During last year’s Writers Guild strike, Hollywood was basically idle for four months, cost the industry about $500 million dollars, and royally jacked up the 2007-08 television season. So what the actors are trying to stop nowadays is quite easy to cherish.

If the Screen Actors Guild’s desire fulfills, this will be used as a negotiating tool with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Screen Actors Guild’s plan is to collect votes from Jan. 2 to Jan. 23; seventy-five percent of the paid-up membership must approve it to be successful. However this will not necessarily lead to a strike.

Nevertheless a smaller contingent of actors, such as Mel Gibson and Martin Sheen, signed a petition of their own earlier this month in an attempt to show solidarity to their union and the strike authorization vote.