Decision Lets Writers Work on Grammys

Jan 30, 07:33 AM

By Lynn Elber

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

The Grammy Awards will be in full voice next month .

The board of directors of the Writers Guild of America decided Monday to sign an interim agreement that will let its members work on the Feb. 10 ceremonies. Last week, the guild gave its blessing to a picket-free Grammys.

The agreement is in support of union musicians and also will help advance writers' own quest for "a fair contract," the guild said in a statement.

"Professional musicians face many of the same issues that we do concerning fair compensation for the use of their work in new media," Patric M. Verrone, president of the guild's West Coast branch, said in the statement.

Payment for projects distributed via the Internet is a central issue in the contract dispute between the writers union and the alliance that represents studios.

Informal talks began last week between the union and several studio chiefs in an effort to resolve the nearly three-month-old strike that has disrupted movie and TV production.

Formal negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke down in early December.

During the impasse, the Directors Guild of America reached a tentative deal with the alliance that addressed new-media issues and created pressure for the writers to resume talks.

The guild has agreed to allow next month's NAACP Image Awards to proceed with guild support, a courtesy also granted to Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards.

But the guild has declined a waiver for the Academy Awards, raising doubts about how the Feb. 24 ceremony will be staged if the strike continues and actors stage a boycott.

(c) 2008 Virginian - Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Decision Lets Writers Work on Grammys
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