Writers, producers close in on strike

Even as writers and major studios were making a last-ditch effort to avert a walkout early Monday morning, both sides were busily preparing for all-out war.

Union workers were furiously assembling picket signs Friday as strike captains contacted scores of television and film writers to tell them where to show up for demonstrations expected to sprout across Hollywood and in New York.

Studios were maneuvering to keep their production pipelines flowing, ratcheting up pressure on truck drivers and other members of the Teamsters union to keep them working in the event of a strike.

Teamster leaders have urged their members not to cross picket lines in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, which represents about 12,000 TV and film scribes.

At the same time, the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were prodded late Friday by a federal mediator to meet Sunday at 10 a.m. to try to hammer out a new contract and avert a debilitating strike.

After months of contentious negotiations, writers and their employers were unable to reach agreement on a new contract to replace the one that expired Wednesday at midnight. Talks broke down over payments for DVDs and for shows distributed on the Internet.

On Friday, the union’s board of directors accepted the recommendation of its negotiators to stage what would be the writers’ first strike in nearly two decades.

“This is not an action that anyone takes lightly,” said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West, at a news conference Friday. “But it slowly became apparent that the studios are not prepared to deal fairly with writers and the rest of the talent.”

Nick Counter, president of the producers alliance, said the Writers Guild’s call for a strike was “precipitous and irresponsible.” Yet he held out some hope that a deal could be reached: “Our goal continues to be to reach a fair and reasonable agreement that will keep the industry working.”

Already, informal behind-the-scenes talks have been begun between high-level members of the writers’ negotiating committee and the studio and network executives they work for. The committee is headed by comedy writer John F. Bowman (“Saturday Night Live”) and includes such top writer-producers as Neal Baer (“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”) and Marc Cherry (“Desperate Housewives”).

Another high-profile member of the committee, Carlton Cuse, an executive producer of “Lost,” confirmed Friday that members of the guild and the negotiating committee were having “back-channel” meetings with leaders of the alliance.

“For five months, we’ve had a series of meetings in this big room where 40 people on each side have sat across from each other, and nothing has been accomplished,” Cuse said. “And people at a certain point have begun to realize that that’s not going to be an effective forum to get a deal cleared.”

A strike would not only hurt the entertainment industry, but would also have a ripple effect across the Los Angeles economy. Small businesses that feed off Hollywood could be especially hurt.

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa met with guild officials earlier this week at City Hall, offering to help mediate the dispute.

However, the parties were so polarized that few were optimistic about the probability of an eleventh-hour deal. In addition, some studio executives wondered whether negotiating a pact with a moderate faction of the Writers Guild would accomplish much, since the hard-liners appeared to be calling the shots at the union.

Complicating the situation for the studios is the threat of the powerful Teamsters joining the fray. If the Teamsters’ 4,500 truck drivers, casting directors and location managers refuse to cross picket lines, that would cause an immediate disruption, increasing the writers’ leverage. For example, drivers might refuse to deliver lighting and camera equipment needed at a studio set or on location.

Teamsters Local 399 leader Leo Reed this week urged his members to honor the picket lines, a call that was reiterated Thursday by Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. “If we abandon our union brothers and sisters now, we abandon the very core principles of trade unionism,” he said.

The Teamsters maintain that members have the right to refuse to cross picket lines of other unions without being penalized by their employers.

The producers took aim at that provision this week, alleging in a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board that it violates federal law.

On Friday the Teamsters fired back, filing an complaint with the labor board against the producers alliance. It alleges that the group had made a “concerted effort to intimidate Local 399 members with threats of immediate discharge and future retaliation” if they refused to cross a Writers Guild picket line.

Producers alliance spokeswoman Barbara Brogliatti called the allegation untrue. “No Teamster has been or will be threatened for following his conscience,” she said.

The studios were also telling writers they could continue to work and collect a paycheck during a strike.

“Federal law guarantees your right to work during a strike,” stated a six-page letter distributed this week by Walt Disney Co.’s ABC Studios. “We encourage writers to work.”

The letter also said that writers could be replaced.

“Clearly this is not the studio’s preferred course,” said the letter, which was provided to writers who work on ABC shows.

In the letter, ABC suggested that writers who wanted to work through the strike could resign from the guild or convert their membership to nonvoting status, something called a “financial core” membership. Those members pay dues and receive benefits, but the Writers Guild could block their attempts to regain full membership later.

In the last writers strike, in 1988, some guild members took that option and went back to work. That allowed the studios to continue production, weakening the union’s position.

ABC’s letter outlined the procedure for resigning from the Writers Guild.

In a statement Friday, ABC said it had distributed the letter to answer employees’ questions. “The law protects both the right to work as well as the right to strike. We thought it fair that employees be fully informed.”

Throughout the city, TV show-runners were planning to work through the weekend to finish scripts before Monday’s strike. Wunderkind producer Greg Berlanti, whose company produces “Brothers & Sisters,” “Dirty Sexy Money” and the ABC midseason drama “Eli Stone,” said his focus was on his company’s 950 employees.

“I want to keep our crew and our actors and everybody working as long as possible to make these shows great,” Berlanti said. “If a strike happens, and no one ever wants it to happen, I want the people that work for me to survive it.”

But concentrating, he said, was tough, as people were taking down pictures in their offices and behaving like it was the end of the season instead of halftime.

“It’s been a really hard couple of weeks with the combination of trying to do more work than usual, suffering the feeling that you don’t have any control over the situation,” Berlanti said. “Then there’s a sense of the impending strike and what that can bring. None of it is good.”

--

richard.verrier@latimes.com

claudia.eller@latimes.com

maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com

--

Times staff writers Meg James, Andrea Chang and Joseph Menn contributed to this report.