Movie and TV Writers Vote Industry Strike

West Coast members of the Writers Guild of America voted Saturday to strike the motion picture and TV industry in a dispute centering on videocassette reruns, health benefits, creative rights for TV writers and a greater share of profits for screenwriters.

One guild negotiator later accused management of “stonewalling” on an acceptable contract. Management in turn accused guild leaders of wanting a strike, which could come in two days.

With East Coast guild members also expected to vote for a strike when they meet Monday night in New York, the walkout would start at 12:01 a.m. PST Tuesday, although picket lines probably will not start appearing until Thursday, said Naomi Gurian, the guild’s executive director here.

The Hollywood vote, which began Friday night but was not completely tallied until early Saturday, came after a night-long WGA membership meeting at the Sheraton-Universal Hotel, where nearly 72% of 2,130 votes rejected a contract offer made by the networks and TV and motion picture producers.

But the margin of those who wanted to strike was smaller. Of 2,058 votes subsequently cast on whether to strike, 61% of those voting backed a walkout, guild officials said.

Gurian, who said the guild has 9,000 members, said about 7,100 WGA members nationally were eligible to vote. About 5,100 of them are members of the guild in Los Angeles. The vote by union members in New York could block the strike, but guild leaders here said it was highly doubtful that the New York membership would vote against a strike.

Effects of a writers’ strike on prime-time network programs would not be immediately felt, but if the strike lasted longer than a week it could have a sharp impact on the networks’ 13 daytime soap operas, which generally tape from one to two weeks in advance.

Effect on Films

Film production, which has a longer preparation period than its night-time TV counterpart, probably would not suffer initially as much as television. However, movies intended for theatrical release in 1986 probably would be delayed.

Network and local news programs were not involved in the negotiations and would not be affected by a strike. News writers have separate contracts.

Contract talks between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers began in January. They ended at midnight Thursday, when the WGA’s current three-year contract expired. The alliance, proposing a new three-year pact, said then it had made “our best and final offer.”

Saturday’s vote was followed by two later news conferences, the first by the WGA, the second by the alliance, which represents more than 300 members, including major studios and the three television networks.

Alliance president Nicholas J. Counter III, speaking at alliance headquarters in Sherman Oaks, accused guild leaders of “blatant misrepresentations” of what he called management’s $84-million package. He also said that the WGA wanted a strike.

‘Prepared for Strike’

“While management does not want a strike, we are prepared for a lengthy strike, if necessary,” he said. He also added that if the need arises, “we will find ways to get scripts.” Asked how, he simply said, “There are ways.”

Frank Pierson, a guild negotiator and former WGA president, said the alliance had been “continuously stonewalling” on a contract and didn’t submit its final offer until five minutes after the old contract expired at midnight Thursday.

Pierson, who appeared with Gurian and other WGA officials at a morning news conference at guild headquarters in West Los Angeles, said the proposed contract from the alliance was presented as “an ultimatum.”

Counter in turn said guild negotiators almost immediately rejected management’s offer. “It’s extremely unusual . . . to reject an offer in three or four minutes,” he added.

Although a key issue in the dispute has been the writers’ percentage of revenues from the booming videocassette market, Gurian said health and welfare benefits for WGA members in the television industry were among the top “sticking points” in negotiations.

‘Creative Rights’

Other important issues include “additional creative rights” for TV movie writers and a greater share of the profits for screenwriters. She ranked the videocassette issue as perhaps fourth in the guild’s list of concerns, but first on that of the alliance.

During Friday night’s guild meeting, a group of anti-strike members who call themselves the Union Blues, urged ratification of the alliance contract, according to screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd, a spokesman for the group.

Their basic position, he said, was that the offer was an acceptable package: “It wasn’t a great package, and none of us were thrilled to go to the floor and advocate it. But we were trying to measure the effect of a long, protracted strike.”

But “the majority has spoken,” he said. “The problem as presented to us (by guild leaders) largely seems to be management’s refusal to take our negotiators seriously.” And, he said, speaking of the membership meeting, “there was real anger on the floor.”

All work by guild members on scripts was to have stopped when the guild’s old contract expired, Pierson said after WGA’s press conference. Although no new negotiations were scheduled for the weekend, he expressed hopes such talks might be held before Monday night.

“I hope this was just a probe (by the alliance) to see how firm the membership is, and now that they’ll get on with negotiations,” he said.

Videocassette Issue

Although there were 250 guild proposals in the talks, most attention has centered on the videocasette revenue issue--which on Monday is scheduled to go before an arbitrator whose selection was approved by each side in January.

The dispute contributed to the guild’s 13-week strike in 1981, which forced postponement of the networks’ fall season that year for several weeks. Some shows scheduled to premiere in September were forced to debut as late as November.

That strike followed an 11-week strike in 1980 by the Screen Actors Guild, which also disrupted the networks’ plans for their fall season.

At issue in the current dispute over videocassettes is whether WGA members should receive their percentage of earnings from videocassettes from the producer’s gross or from the larger distributor’s gross revenues. The writers want 1.2% of the latter.

A similar dispute nearly touched off the first strike in the 50-year history of the Directors Guild of America last July. A walkout was averted when directors accepted a deal giving them 1.5% of the producers’ cassette sales on the first $1 million in revenues and 1.8% after that. The WGA rejects this as not good enough for its members.

6 1/2 Increase

On Saturday, Gurian accused the alliance of obstinacy in negotiations “because they want the writers guild to be punished for having the temerity to file the videocasette issue for arbitration.”

According to Gurian, the alliance’s three-year contract offered a general 6%-a-year increase in minimum pay for film and TV scripts. Under the expired pact, minimums ranged from $9,737 for a half-hour TV comedy episode to $26,506 for a two-hour TV movie.

Depending on the the budget of a theatrical movie, the old minimums ranged from $16,517 to $33,807 for a script purchased by a studio or producer, according to a guild spokeswoman.