Hollywood Braces for a Walkout By Writers

Nov 04, 10:14 AM

Current Headlines: By Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

Hollywood's two-decade period of labor peace is close to shattering as movie and television writers declared they would embark on an industry-wide strike for the first time since 1988, when both writers and Teamsters walked out.

The president of the Writers Guild of America, Patric Verrone, drew loud cheers when he announced in a closed-door session Thursday night that the union could strike as early as Sunday, several writers told The Associated Press. However, guild officials said privately that the strike would most likely start Monday.

The WGA board was scheduled to meet Friday morning to approve the strike and set a time for the first picket lines, the Associated Press reported. A strike captains' meeting was set for Saturday morning.

But J. Nicholas Counter 3rd, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, left open the prospect of a last- minute deal.

"By the WGA leadership's actions at the bargaining table, we are not surprised by tonight's recommendation," he said in a statement late Thursday. "We are ready to meet and are prepared to close this contract this weekend."

A strike would pit union writers, whose position has been eroded by reality television and galloping technological change, against studios and networks that are backed by big corporate owners like General Electric and News Corp., but are also unsure of the future.

The walk-out threatens an instant jolt to television talk shows like "Late Night With David Letterman" and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," which rely on guild writers to churn out monologues and skits. And if the strike drags on, audiences could see the eventual shutdown of soap operas, TV series and movie productions, as they exhaust their bank of ready scripts.

In the near term, a writers strike would have an immediate impact on more than 200,000 workers in the movie and TV industry in the Los Angeles area, and the thousands more who produce or sell entertainment elsewhere in the United States and abroad.

The dispute may also signal more labor trouble to come, as directors and actors face similar issues when their contracts expire next June.

Over the long haul, multiple strikes could lead to a drastic overhaul of the economics of Hollywood. They could redefine the industry's relationship with its highly unionized work force at a time when DVD sales are cooling and changing movie and TV markets have workers and companies alike vying for their perceived fair share of a yet-to-be identified next digital bonanza.

"I'm afraid that everybody's in for a terrible time," said Norman Lear, the writer, producer and entrepreneur whose career spanned the disruptions of the 1980s - when Hollywood weathered five strikes by its guilds - and the years of relative peace that preceded and followed that tumultuous decade.

The leaders of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East were expected to order their roughly 12,000 members covered by a contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to stop work and be assigned picket duty when the strike begins.

The strike call follows more than three months of contentious negotiations. Ultimately, the two sides were deadlocked over the writers' insistence on a sharp increase in their residuals payments for the re-use of movies and shows on DVDs, and on new payments for the distribution of such works on the Internet, over cellphones and elsewhere. Producers refused to increase the DVD payments, and rebuffed demands related to electronic distribution, arguing that industry economics and still-shifting technology made accommodation impossible.

A strike by the writers threatens to tear a hole in the economy of Southern California, even as it is already coping with a collapse in home sales and widespread devastation from last month's fires.

The entertainment industry contributes an estimated $30 billion annually, or about 7 percent, to the economy of Los Angeles County, according to Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

Show business also helps drive the local tourist economy. "If tourists see that the entertainment industry is shut down, we worry they will think the entire city is shut down," said Kyser.

He noted that restaurant business in the southeast San Fernando Valley - home to Universal Studios and the largest concentration of production - has already dropped 30 percent as anticipation of the strike grew in recent weeks.

Similarly, thousands of businesses, like small companies that train dogs for television shows and lumber yards that specialize in building materials for sets, face possibly dire consequences, some sooner than others.

"I'm really scared," said Oren Ashkenazi, owner of TVC Television and Cinema Wardrobe Cleaners, located near the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California. The cleaner processes up to 2,000 garments each night for television programs like "24," and is not set up to accept retail customers.

Talent agencies are considering layoffs. Hollywood development executives would be idle or reassigned.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

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