TV & VIDEO - Feb. 27, 1987

Writers Guild members working in news departments at CBS and ABC have voted to give their negotiators authority to call a strike if talks on a new contract fail, a guild spokesman said in New York Thursday. In a vote taken Wednesday night, 420 of 449 members approved strike authority, the spokesman said. The guild’s current three-year contract ends at midnight Sunday. The pact covers newswriters, editors, desk assistants, researchers, promotion writers, production assistants and graphic artists at CBS and ABC news operations in New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. It also covers guild personnel at CBS-owned KCBS-TV and KNX radio in Los Angeles.