WGA talks down to the wire
News blackout as negotiations continue
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Both sides met through the weekend and maintained their news blackout, giving no indication of any progress and no comment on whether the negotiations will be extended past the contract expiration. Both sides were still talking late Sunday.
"Keeping the news blackout shows that both sides are serious," said labor expert Daniel Mitchell, a UCLA professor of management and public policy. "If talks are held in the full public glare, then negotiators also have the additional task of dealing with constituents who have differing interpretations on what they see."
The threat of a strike, which has dogged the industry for the past year, has not yet fully materialized since the Writers Guild of America has not set a strike authorization vote for its 11,500 members. The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, which face a June 30 contract expiration, announced over the weekend that they had completed their proposal for a new contract but they had previously announced that they will not start their talks until the WGA negotiations are completed.
On the industry side, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers faces mounting pressure to bring the negotiations to some kind of conclusion soon. That's because the actors unions have tentatively set May 10 as a start date for their contract talks with the AMPTP; and TV networks will set fall schedules in mid-May with the choices still not set due to uncertainty over whether WGA members will be available for scripting those shows.
Though no official announcement has been made, WGA activists have been contacting members recently about their willingness to help with strike activities such as picketing and working on phone banks.
Meanwhile, writers scrambled over the weekend to finish scripts due today and Tuesday; if talks are extended past the deadline, the current WGA contract would also be extended, and writers could keep working.
Overall production has been dropping with many TV shows moving into hiatus and no major films starting in the last few weeks.
The negotiations began Jan. 22, broke off March 1 with a $100 million gap between the two sides, then resumed April 17. Sources close to the negotiations said they were uncertain if the talks have yet reached the crucial stage where studios and networks will make their "last, best and final" offer.
Once that step is taken, the WGA's negotiating team would decide whether to accept or reject, followed first by a joint vote by the WGA West board and WGA East council, and then by membership votes on the offer and on strike authorization.
The WGA has not yet decided if it will conduct that vote by mail or do so by calling meetings in Hollywood and Gotham.
Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan will continue his anti-strike campaign today by holding a news conference with an array of business leaders to ask both sides to compromise. Riordan recently issued a study showing that the Los Angeles region would lose $6.9 billion in economic activity and 82,000 jobs if there were a 5-month writers strike and a three-month actors strike.
"I don't take the numbers all that seriously but that does not mean that Riordan's efforts don't have an impact," Mitchell said.
