Writers End Strike, Drop Cassette Issue

Although Hollywood’s film and television writers voted overwhelmingly to end their 2-week-old strike, their leader on Tuesday called their approval of a new contract a defeat on a key issue--profits from the booming videocassette market.

The president of the West Coast Writers Guild, Ernest Lehman, made the comment at 1 a.m. after a four-hour contract ratification meeting at the Hollywood Palladium Monday night. He reiterated it at a press conference Tuesday morning when the final vote was announced.

More than 3,000 guild members attended the meeting, and nearly 72% of those voting approved the three-year contract. The vote was 2,075 in favor and 822 against, the guild said. The approval means that writers can resume work immediately and that six NBC shows stopped by the strike can resume production.

The programs are “The Cosby Show,” “Sara,” “Hill Street Blues,” “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” “Late Night with David Letterman” and “Saturday Night Live.” NBC telecast reruns of the last three during the strike.

An NBC spokesman that said the last five scripts of “Sara” will be completed and filmed, as will the two remaining “Hill Street Blues” episodes for this season, but that only two of three remaining “Cosby” scripts will be finished in time for taping this season.

“Saturday Night Live” will resume its live broadcasts on March 30; “Tonight” resumed production Tuesday and the Letterman show will start up again on Thursday, the spokesman added.

Lehman, who voted against the contract, told reporters: “The membership has spoken loudly and clearly” against a long walkout. He made it clear in a brief interview later that he considers the contract’s videocassette provisions a defeat for the guild.

“I don’t want to pretend this was some great victory,” he said. “I’m happy the writers went back to work. I’m not happy at what we gave away.”

Lehman was referring to the guild’s agreement to drop arbitration on sharing profits from videocassettes in return for $1-million management payment to the guild’s health plan.

Pact Expires in 1988

The arbitration covered a period from 1973 to Feb. 28, 1985, when the union’s former contract expired. The new pact, retroactive to March 1, expires on Feb. 29, 1988.

Lehman estimated that guild members could have won $40 million had they succeeded in the videocassette arbitration, which began March 4 but has been dropped.

The guild previously sought 1.2% of distributors’ profits from videocassette sales. In its new contract, it agreed to accept what Lehman called one-fifth of that--1.5% of producers’ profits for the first $1 million in sales and 1.8% thereafter.

The videocassette agreement is the same as one the Directors Guild of America reached last July with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, whose 300 members include the three major networks and major film studios.

Alliance President Nicholas J. Counter III expressed satisfaction at the guild’s vote. “From our standpoint, it was good for our industry and good for the guild to have reached a successful agreement,” he said.

The alliance’s first contract offer was rejected by Hollywood writers on March 1, when nearly 61% of West Coast guild voters approved a walkout that began four days later. The alliance reached a tentative agreement with union negotiators on March 8 after 16 hours of nonstop bargaining overseen by federal mediator Leonard Farrell.

Fierce Opposition

A majority of the guild’s 17-member negotiating committee recommended approval of the new contract, but such fierce opposition was voiced at a March 11 membership vote that it appeared that passage was in doubt.

The stormy March 11 session recessed after four hours of often bitter debate between the contract’s opponents and proponents. Ballots cast during the meeting were held uncounted by guild officials. Further discussion and a final vote were postponed for a week.

On Monday night, there was little of the acrimony that marred the earlier meeting. Sentiment shifted in favor of the proposed contract, with a majority of about 50 speakers taking three-minute turns at microphones to urge ratification.

Frank Pierson, co-chairman of the negotiating committee, theorized that guild members, after a week of analyzing the contract, concluded, as he did, that there was more to be lost than gained from a long strike.

“If we had started out with 100% backing (for a walkout), we would have had the basis for a long strike,” Pierson said. A strike by the guild in 1981 lasted 13 weeks.

Lionel Chetwynd of the Union Blues, a guild faction that urged passage of each of management’s two contract offers, said: “It was a different ball game last night. People were listening with different ears.”

East Coast Backing

A majority of 182 East Coast guild members voted a week ago Monday to ratify the new contract, guild officials in New York have said. A total of 7,100 members were eligible to vote, 5,100 of them in Los Angeles.

Naomi Gurian, the West Coast guild’s executive director, described the contract as an adequate one with improvements in health benefits and creative rights and an average 6%-a-year hike in minimum pay for most film and television scripts. Counter said the contract package is worth $84 million.

The increase is greater for two-hour TV movie scripts, with writers getting 7.5% more the first year, 7% in the second and 13% in the third. Previous minimums for a story and TV script ranged from $9,737 for a half-hour episode to $26,506 for a TV movie.

Gurian, appearing with Lehman at Tuesday’s press conference, said the guild’s fight for a better percentage of videocassettes profits is far from over. “For as long as videocassettes live, this union will be fighting to get an adequate share,” she said, adding that guild leaders “would have like a better deal. But I am content that the membership is content with this one.”

‘Gave Away the Past’

Former guild President David Rintels, a driving force in last week’s opposition to the contract, was among the discontented late Monday when it appeared that the contract would be approved. “I think we gave away the past and the future,” he said of its videocassette provisions.

He noted that because he also is a producer, he stands to make more money because the guild agreed to drop arbitration of the videocassette profits. He smiled tiredly when asked why, then, he had not supported passage of the contract.

“I’m a union man,” he said.

Times Staff Writer John Horn contributed to this story.