by Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Contract talks between the Writers Guild of America and the television and film industry collapsed on Thursday after nearly six weeks of intense bargaining, deepening fears that Hollywood is headed for a crippling strike this spring.
Officials of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the industry, said key sticking points centered on residual payments, which are made as movies
and TV programs enter secondary markets like videos or TV reruns.
At a news conference at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, the producers said writers walked away from a proposal that would have resulted in a net gain of $30 million in residual
payments, or about 11 percent, over the course of a new three-year pact.
The union's latest proposal, by contrast, would have resulted in an increase of pay and residuals of $112 million, or about 40 percent, over the life of the three-year deal, according to the producers.
The Writers Guild was scheduled to hold a news conference later in the day to offer their views of negotiations.
The talks began on Jan. 22 amid the widely held view that a strike by the Writers Guild's 14,000 members was virtually inevitable once their current labor pact expires on May 1, and
that a second walkout by 135,000 unionized actors was likely when their contract runs out two months later.
PRODUCERS STRIKE CONCILIATORY NOTE
But prospects of averting a strike appeared to have brightened in recent weeks as negotiations between the Writers Guild and producers continued way past the union's original two-week deadline for reaching a settlement.
In announcing the breakdown in talks, producers and studio executives sounded a conciliatory note by characterizing
Writers Guild negotiator as “thoughtful” and the talks as
“constructive.”
“We are hoping this is going to be a brief breaking off of negotiations, rather than a collapse,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the principal partners at the DreamWorks SKG film
studio.
At the outset of negotiations in January, Union officials had said that if the talks ended without an accord, they were unlikely to return to the bargaining table before April.
Along with an increases in residual payments, the writers want a greater say in the creative process. Due to overlapping demands on economic issues, a settlement of the writers contract would make it easier for producers to clinch a deal with the actors unions for their contract expires July 1.
The two actors unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, have yet to schedule contract talks with the TV and film producers.
In October last year, the actors union settled a bitter six-month strike against the advertising industry that also centered on residual payments.
STOCKPILING SCRIPTS
Anticipating twin work stoppages by writers and actors this spring and summer, TV and movie studios for months have been rushing films and TV series into production and stockpiling
scripts.
The producers alliance and the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. have projected that a production shutdown
resulting in dual strikes by writers and actors would cost the region at least $2 billion a month, not including the ripple effects on the housing, retail and tourism markets.
Key economic issues for filmmakers center on higher residual fees demanded by writers for sales of home videos and
DVDs. In the TV arena, writers want higher royalties for programs aimed at cable and foreign markets.
The writers also are seeking to expand their creative rights, including greater access to movie sets and involvement in the overall filmmaking process.
The writers guild last went on strike in 1988 in a dispute that delayed the start of the fall TV season.
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