By LYNN ELBER
AP Television Writer
March 16, 2001
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Contract talks between Hollywood
producers and the Writers Guild of America had broken
off, and union leaders called a meeting to gauge their
members' resolve.
`If we had to have a strike vote, I'm sure it would
have been a 90 percent-plus vote,'' Michael Mahern, a
guild negotiator, said of the March 6 gathering.
That determination springs from the guild's belief
that years of unfair contracts have shorted them while
allowing producers to get rich off the explosive growth
of videocassettes, cable TV and foreign markets.
Starting now, the WGA says, it intends to secure the
future for its 11,500 members when their contract
expires May 1.
But is the timing right? While studios dig in their
heels against what they say are unprecedented union
demands, both sides must weigh the realities of a
slowing economy, changing industry, and labor relations
in Los Angeles.
`I find the timing curious, given the economic
environment, to entertain the notion of going on strike
when alternatives of making money are harder to come
by,'' said analyst Gordon Hodge. ``Which leads me to
think the studios have some advantage in the game of
chicken that's being played.''
Experts are far from agreement, however.
Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research
and Education at the University of California, Los
Angeles, gives the guild - which last went on strike in
1988 - an edge.
`I do think the union is proceeding from a position
of strength. There's been a renewed sense of activism
within the entertainment industry unions,'' Wong said,
citing last year's hard-fought strike by commercial
actors.
Labor in general is on the upswing in Los Angeles,
with more than 100,000 new workers organized in the past
two years (mostly service workers) and a janitors'
strike that won a big pay hike, Wong said.
While a slowing economy has raised fears of
recession, the entertainment business itself is healthy.
`In the last recession, in the early 1990s, the
industry did great,'' said Hillary Bibicoff, an
entertainment attorney and former studio executive.
``When there's a recession, people go to the movies.
Maybe you don't take your $5,000 trip so you buy your
$10 movie ticket.''
The fact that many studios have been absorbed by
bigger companies is another variable. Some studios have
hinted they are better positioned to cope with a strike
because their parent firms are cushioned by multiple
revenue sources.
A corporation like AOL Time Warner Inc., which
includes the Warner Bros. studio, will get an estimated
23 percent ($9.3 billion) of its revenue from film and
television production in 2001, analyst Hodge said.
Still, in these ``vertically integrated'' companies,
which spin books, records and other merchandise off
films or TV shows, the lack of new filmed product could
hurt, he noted.
Adding to the uncertainty, the actors' contract
expires July 1, and a dual strike could cripple the
industry and cost as much as $1 billion a month.
The fall TV season could be dramatically affected,
with a heavy rotation of reality series and news
magazines filling in for sitcoms and dramas. The current
frenzy of movie production, induced by strike fears,
would stop dead.
When six weeks of talks broke off March 1 between the
WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television
Producers, which represents the major studios and
networks, the sides cited a wide gap on money.
The union has focused on the residuals that writers
receive for basic cable and foreign TV and for
videocassettes. In a field in which employment can be
sporadic - about 51 percent of WGA members worked in
1999 - residuals are a crucial source of income.
Dissatisfaction with past residual deals was partly
behind a guild shakeup that led to the election in 1999
of writer-producer John Wells (``ER'') as WGA West
president.
The guild maintains it has made economic concessions
over the years to help markets like video and cable TV
develop, but is now entitled to a greater share of
profits. For instance, while manufacturing costs for
videocassettes have dropped from $14 to $3 in the past
decade, the writers' share of 4 cents per video is
unchanged, the WGA said. It is asking for 1 cent more
per cassette.
Studios respond that production costs in other areas
have risen. And they note that writers are not the
industry's only mouths to feed.
`We have to look at how it impacts the industry as a
whole. They're just looking at it in a vacuum,'' said
alliance president Nick Counter.
The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation
of Radio and Television Artists, coming off the
six-month commercial strike that was Hollywood's longest
walkout, share some contract issues. Observers have
suggested that the actors and writers may end up
essentially negotiating together if the WGA contract
expires without a deal.
Although Hollywood is awash in pessimism about a
strike, some refuse to join in the gloom _ among them
Julia Roberts, asked about it during the recent Screen
Actors Guild awards.
`Those guys are smart,'' the actress said of the
writers.
`They'll work themselves out.''
Related Links:
http://wga.org/
http://www.amptp.org/
http://sag.org/
