Industry in post-strike mode

Writers in limbo until members approve deal

By CYNTHIA LITTLETON, DAVE MCNARY

Though the writers strike can't officially end until tonight, the town began the week very much in post-strike mode.

No pickets were stationed Monday morning outside studio lots, although the strike's still on until members approve terminating the work stoppage at afternoon meetings -- set for 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza in New York and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the WGA Theater in Los Angeles. Members can also vote via fax.

"It's strange not getting out to a picket line at the start of the day, so I did sleep in," said strike captain Michael Russnow, who supervised pickets at CBS Television City. "It was a lot like having a job. Now I have to figure out what to do next."

"Lost" exec producer Carlton Cuse said going back to work was a great feeling, even though "it feels like there's a lot of rust to shake off."

And as a member of the WGA's negotiating committee, he takes enormous pride in "what everyone accomplished by working together, and how in the end the process came together for a successful, productive negotiation. We got historic, groundbreaking provisions in new media that were by no means a given for us when we started these talks."

WGA West organizer Charles Allen, who coordinated much of the day-to-day strike operations, told Daily Variety that the tables, canopies and thousands of red-and-black signs have not been put away.

"We're kind of in limbo at the moment, waiting for the membership vote," Allen said. "If they vote to stay on strike, we'll be back out on Wednesday morning."

But that's highly unlikely after the deal received the unanimous blessing of the WGA leadership. Though some members have voiced concerns over parts of the deal -- the 17- to 24-day promotional window in streaming and the lack of improvements in cable are particular sore spots -- nearly all members are beginning to get back into work mode.

Allen also said if the strike does end, it's likely that some of the WGA's strike materials would be donated to the Screen Actors Guild if the actors decided to walk out this summer.

The WGA has other unfinished strike business, such as assembling materials for the ratification ballot. It has told members there's a Thursday noon deadline for submission of pro and con statements by groups of 10 for the ratification mailing; ratification voting is expected to be completed in about two weeks.

The guild's legal eagles spent Sunday and Monday wrapping up the last loose threads of the contract agreement, but WGA West general counsel Tony Segall said the most important details were nailed down by the time of the Saturday membership meetings.

As guild leaders began to unwind from the 24/7 red-alert strike status, Segall emphasized the importance of what had been achieved in the hard-fought negotiations.

"Every 20 years, negotiations are really high-stakes, when some new distribution model comes along and the (guild) has to stake its claim," Segall said. "We were successful in forcing a negotiation on things that the companies did not want to talk to us about."

Most significant element of the deal that had yet to be distributed in writing to members involved restoring certain scribes who received force majeure termination notices last month. There's also been much speculation about whether the contract includes a favored nations clause that would allow the WGA to adjust its contract if the Screen Actors Guild is able to negotiate more favorable terms.

WGA West president Patric Verrone has disclosed that guild leaders have a "handshake agreement" with the majors that will give them flexibility specifically on new-media provisions if SAG is able to negotiate terms that the WGA believes are more favorable. Even after 14 weeks of warfare, Verrone indicated at the Sunday news conference at WGA headquarters that guild leaders are said to be comfortable with the handshake promise from the moguls rather than demanding that such terms be spelled out on paper.

One insider suggested the handshake gesture was an attempt to build on the warming of relations between the two sides in the last few weeks and establish a sense of trust that the majors will be good to their word. The WGA and AMPTP congloms also have established a number of joint committees to study certain aspects of the new-media biz and other contentious areas so that both sides will be aware of brewing issues long before they meet again at the negotiating table.

For members who were hit with force majeure terminations, the WGA contract calls for employers to reinstate any scribe who was axed from a TV or film project that is resuming production. It does not cover scribes who may have been force majeured from a pure development pact that was not tied in to an active project. Most of the force majeure pinkslips that went out last month involved scribes and producers who were not working on active series, but guild reps said there were members who would benefit from this contract provision.

Moreover, writers who were hired on fixed-term contracts, e.g., a 13-week production cycle for a talkshow or latenight show, will have their contracts reinstated for whatever length of time remained at the time the strike began. If a scribe had six weeks to go on a 13-week contract when the walkout began Nov. 5, that scribe will go back to work for the same employer in the same capacity for at least six weeks.

The deal also mandates that companies who hired scab writers during the strike reinstate their WGA-repped scribes even if it means displacing the replacement workers. Insiders said this involves a handful of scribes hired to work on certain daytime soaps. At Saturday night's membership meeting, WGA leaders evoked cheers from the crowd by disclosing that detail.

Among other nitty-gritty issues, the contract dispenses with the unfair labor practices claims the WGA filed against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers with the National Labor Relations Board in December, stemming from the AMPTP's demand that six proposals be removed as a condition of continuing negotiations. And it settles a dispute that erupted between the AMPTP and WGA last summer over how much the AMPTP was obligated to pay into the WGA health fund.

The dispute led to a federal arbitration filing by the AMPTP in June, as called for in the health plan charter. But the AMPTP's filing included some liability language that made the claim feel more like a lawsuit to the WGA health fund trustees, and in the eyes of WGA brass the AMPTP's move set an ominous tone for the contract negotiations that began a month later.

Another issue that will linger for the WGA post-strike is how to punish strikebreakers, such as the latenight hosts who returned to work early last month. Verrone said Sunday, in response to a question about whether Jay Leno would be disciplined, that the strike rules committee is considering all the violations and that he would not comment further.

Issued several weeks before the strike started, the WGA strike rules barred any writing for struck companies, or delivering any material or signing documents relating to writing assignments; they compelled members to honor guild picket lines, perform assigned strike support duties and reporting strike-breaking activity. Discipline for violations can include expulsion, suspension, fines and censure; nonmembers who perform banned work during a strike will be barred from joining the WGA.

In 1988, the WGA announced it had expelled a handful of strikebreakers after the five-month work stoppage, which saw significant levels of strikebreaking in its final weeks.