Strike Watch 2007!

WGA-AMPTP War Of Words: Who'll Blink First?

Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) President Patric M. Verrone and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) President Michael Winship today issued the following message regarding the AMPTP-WGA negotiations which appear to be breaking down. (For background, see my previous, Talks Day #7: AMPTP "Stalling Tactics"; Are The Moguls About To Quit The Talks?) The AMPTP immediately followed with a statement of its own (see below). Who's telling the truth? I think from these dueling statements the answer is quite clear:

Dear Fellow Members,
Before we head into negotiations this morning, we want to give you an update on where we stand. On Tuesday, after the companies had requested a four-day break so they could work on their proposals, we returned to the bargaining table. We presented a counter proposal to their streaming proposal of November 29. They presented no new proposals. On Wednesday, the AMPTP again had no new proposals, but they did have detailed questions about our streaming counter proposal and other aspects of our overall proposals – and from the give and take of those discussions, we felt that they might finally be ready to engage in serious bargaining. They told us they would have new proposals for us Thursday. On Thursday, we met at 10am, and they told us their new proposals would be ready shortly. At 5 PM, 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 10am. The fact that we saw everyone from the AMPTP leave the building by 6:45pm is not a promising sign, but we will be at the table at 10 AM this morning, ready to receive their new proposal.

We’d like to address some of the disturbing rumors and back channel communications we’ve been hearing. For one, 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. 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. Also, highly placed executives have been telling some of our writers that the companies are preparing to abruptly cut off negotiations. 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, West and East are going on record now that any such claims are absolutely untrue. We have been at the negotiating table every day, willing to bargain. Furthermore, we hereby challenge the AMPTP to negotiate in good faith, day and night, through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays – whatever is necessary – to get this done and get the town back to work. The Writers Guilds will remain at the table every day, for as long as it takes, to make a fair deal.

Thank you for your patience, support, and solidarity through these difficult times. Please come to the Freemantle rally today. We remain all in this together.
Patric M. Verrone
Writers Guild of America, West
&
Michael Winship
President
Writers Guild of America, East

And here is the AMPTP statement answering it:

The WGA's organizers sent a letter to WGA members today that contains a series of factual mistakes.

WGA Organizer Statement

"[T]he companies had requested a four-day break so they could work on their proposals."

The Facts

On Nov. 29, the WGA's organizers requested the four-day break after the producers presented their proposed New Economic Partnership.

WGA Organizer Statement

The producers "told us they would have new proposals."

The Facts

The producers did present a new proposal, the New Economic Partnership, which 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.

WGA Organizer Statement

"We have been at the negotiating table every day, willing to bargain."

The Facts

The WGA's organizers actually spend relatively little time at the negotiating table. The WGA's organizers sought a four-day break, and when they returned sessions that were supposed to begin at 10:00 am 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.

WGA Organizer Statement

"We will remain at the table every day, for as long as it takes, to make a fair deal."

The Facts

The WGA's organizers 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.

Talks Day #7: AMPTP "Stalling Tactics"; Are The Moguls About To Quit The Talks?

EXCLUSIVE: I wish I had better news about the AMPTP-WGA contract negotiations, but I don't. To sum up, they suck. I took extra time reporting tonight, and some very surprising developments came to light. For instance, Peter Chernin is privately telling Hollywood that the producers plan to quit the talks any day now. That they have no intention of coming back with another streaming proposal "until we are close". And that they'll only give a better electronic sell-through formula "at the last minute" when a contract with the writers is virtually signed.

These quiet remarks by the Fox/News Corp No. 2 are the complete opposite of what the AMPTP is telling the WGA around the bargaining table.

I'm told Thursday's talks began at 10 AM, and both the WGA and AMPTP had a brief discussion about streaming, made-for-web content pay and jurisdiction, and electronic sell-through. Then one of the negotiators from the network and studio CEOs' side declared, "The DVD formula is good for you, and you should embrace it with open arms."

The AMPTP then claimed it had "a proposal coming" supposedly based on the writers' streaming counter-proposal from Tuesday and asked the WGA side to wait around. By 5 pm, it wasn't done. Then the producers claimed they would work on the proposal at the hotel straight through midnight or later and give it to the WGA at Friday's session.

But some of the WGA negotiators hung around the hotel and, to their surprise, watched the AMPTP contingent get in their cars at exactly 6 PM and individually drive off.

(This follows what happened on Wednesday when the AMPTP negotiators asked to break early to celebrate the first day of Chanukah -- yet their official statement later claimed it had been the writers side who didn't want to negotiate late into the evening...)

Chernin, CBS' Les Moonves, and some of the other Hollywood moguls this week keep kvetching about how "frustrating" the AMPTP-WGA talks have become and how "pessimistic" they are about a quick resolution. The bigwigs have even concocted this fiction that they wanted to solve the strike in three intense days of negotiations before Christmas but now they see that's impossible because of the level of mistrust and misunderstanding around the table. My sources tell me the CEOs seem to be looking for any excuse to blame WGA chief negotiator Dave Young specifically for "blowing it".

But the truth is this: the Hollywood moguls have not delivered on their promises. And Chernin's statements make clear they never had any intention of doing so right now. Days are passing, and the AMPTP still hasn't come back with a counter/counter-offer to the WGA's counter-offer to the AMPTP's offer on streaming. Days are passing, and the AMPTP still hasn't come back with the 2nd half of its New Media proposal presumably containing ESTs. Days are passing, and the AMPTP and WGA are still paralyzed on Internet issues, which is why they moved way down their list to the subject of Reality TV jurisdiction. Sure that angered the CEOs who own a network -- and I think it was a giant mistake by the writers' negotiating team to get off New Media and onto that. But it came up because of the AMPTP's stalling tactics, and the two sides had to jawbone about something.

In conclusion, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, as soon as Friday, the AMPTP walks out of the talks with a news release in hand that it's all the WGA's fault.

And I now predict the CEOs will make a big public show of deciding to open talks with the Directors Guild right away and thus try to screw the striking writers. (That's already begun -- today's Los Angeles Times virtually announces it in roundabout fashion by noting that 300 director-writers today begged their DGA to hold off...)

And I predict the AMPTP won't return to negotiations with the writers until February at the earliest after declaring force majeure. Please, oh please, prove me wrong.

Talks Day #6: WGA Presses On Reality TV

The talks will resume on Thursday. But I'm told by a mogul that the reason the second half of the AMPTP proposal -- which presumably contains an offer about electronic sell-through (ESTs) -- has not yet seen the light of day is because "no one is prepared to put anything new on the table until there's movement on other issues." Oh, c'mon!

So the AMPTP had an internal meeting today about the WGA's offer on streaming but didn't bring any counter/counter-offer on New Media to the table. The WGA in an end-of-day statement tonight said "we are still waiting for the AMPTP to respond to ... Internet streaming of theatrical and TV product and digital downloads." The producers' end-of-day statement tonight was generic, not detailed.

The largest part of today's negotiations were taken over by the WGA's small group discussion of jurisdiction for Reality TV and made-for-Web content as well as animation and cable. I've learned the WGA played hardball by demanding that network and studio CEOs no longer make deals with Reality TV producers like Mark Burnett Productions, Fremantle, Endemol etc unless those companies become signatories of the WGA. This is part of the WGA's continuing campaign to ensure that Reality TV writers -- often referred to as the story editors or story producers of the shows -- start to receive the same benefits and pay and protections as guild members. (Of course, further complicating matters is that some Reality TV shows have signed deals with IA, the editors guild.) It's also clear the WGA's demand today was timed to this Friday's big writers protest outside Fremantle Media headquarters.

Needless to say, network CEOs expressed disbelief and anger that the WGA would try to put Reality TV on the table today. I swear one mogul was going to have a coronary, sputtering as he charged that today's talks were "going backwards". (Did the producers not hear that Variety erroneously reported pre-strike that the WGA negotiators had dropped their nonscripted proposal? On the other hand, don't the writers consider New Media formulas a more pressing issue? Am I starting to lose the will to live?)

Interestingly, the WGA's demand that all made-for-web work be placed under the guild's full jurisdiction didn't seem to hit a nerve with either the AMPTP or its CEOs.