WGA, Studios Trade Shots Over Stalled Talks
Squabbling Gets Petty As Both Sides Exchange Salvos
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 12/7/2007 8:12:00 AM
TV writers and studios exchanged a testy volley of charges Friday regarding who was dragging their feet in contract negotiations, as speculation surfaced that the producers might cut off bargaining aimed at ending the five-week-old strike.
Striking a pre-emptive blow, the Writers Guild of America first sent a letter to members addressing reports in publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Variety, which noted the slow pace of the talks and suggested that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers might cut off talks today.
The squabbling got pretty petty, with the WGA accusing the studios of talking off early in the night and the AMPTP claiming the writers were showing up late – around lunchtime – for scheduled morning sessions.
“We’ve heard that one or more of the companies are prepared to throw away the spring and fall TV season, plus features, and prolong the strike,” Michael Winship and Patric Verrone, presidents of the WGA East and West, respectively, said in their message to members Friday.
“Aside from the devastating effect this would have on the unions, workers and their families in this industry, it would certainly explain the AMPTP’s refusal to put any new proposals, even a bad one, on the table,” the WGA leaders said.
“Also, highly placed executives have been telling some of our writers that the companies are preparing to abruptly cut off negotiations,” the letter said. “They say the companies plan to accuse the WGA of stalling and being unwilling to negotiate, and that the companies will use that as an excuse to walk out. The Writers Guilds of America, East and West are going on record now that any such claims are absolutely untrue.”
The WGA said it’s been bargaining in good faith, and vowed to negotiate “through the Christmas and New Years holidays - whatever is necessary - to get this done and get the town back to work.”
The AMPTP immediately rebutted the WGA’s allegations, one by one.
“The WGA's organizers actually spend relatively little time at the negotiating table,” the producers charged. “The WGA's organizers sought a four-day break, and when they returned sessions that were supposed to begin at 10 a.m. often did not start until after lunchtime. When they are at the negotiating site, WGA organizers typically spend as much time speaking among themselves as they do at the negotiating table.”
The AMPTP also claimed that the WGA “refused repeated requests by the producers to begin negotiations much earlier, in the spring of 2007. Had negotiations begun when the producers wanted them to start, perhaps the industry would not now be in the midst of this strike.”
In its letter, the WGA accused the AMPTP of dragging its feet for not coming up with a counter proposal
to an offer the union made Tuesday.
“They told us they would have new proposals for us Thursday,” the WGA said. “On Thursday, we met at 10 a.m., and they told us their new proposals would be ready shortly. At 5 p.m. they told us their proposals still weren’t ready, that they would be working on them late into the night, and that we should come back this morning at 10 a.m. The fact that we saw everyone from the AMPTP leave the building by 6:45 p.m. is not a promising sign, but we will be at the table at 10 a.m. this morning, ready to receive their new proposal.”
In turn, the AMPTP claimed that the WGA had requested a recent four-day break in talks. The studios maintained that they have a new proposal on the table, one that “would increase the average working writer's salary to more than $230,000 a year. The WGA's organizers have yet to respond directly to that proposal, preferring instead to focus on jurisdictional issues in the areas of reality and animation television.”
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