News Writers Back Strike by Hindering Shows’ Work

While CBS News stars Charles Osgood and Andy Rooney briefly joined picket lines in New York in a symbolic show of support Tuesday, striking Writers Guild of America members in Los Angeles escalated their efforts to disrupt local news and two network entertainment programs.

In addition to picketing during the taping of the soap opera “The Young and The Restless” and the game show “The Price Is Right” at CBS Television City, striking news and promotion writers claimed to have hindered or halted at least half a dozen news segments scheduled to air over the KCBS-TV (Channel 2) evening newscasts.

In New York, meanwhile, officials of ABC, CBS and the guild agreed on the second day of the walkout to meet with a federal mediator Thursday in an effort to end the strike against the two networks and seven network-owned TV and radio stations, including CBS’s KCBS and KNX-AM (1070) in Los Angeles.

Management employees continued to fill in for the 525 striking guild members to keep news programs on the air. But the strikers still had an impact in Los Angeles.

Though they are not on strike, several sympathetic cameramen and technicians in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 45 refused to cross picket lines for the second day. KCBS spokeswoman Andi Sporkin said that while some of the IBEW members had returned to work Tuesday, KCBS could field only nine camera crews instead of the usual 12.

Pickets also shut down a temporary videotape editing site that KCBS had set up in a hotel room in North Hollywood, several miles from the station’s Sunset Boulevard studios, in an effort to circumvent the strikers.

Guild spokesmen Michael Singer told The Times that a daily news crew assignment list had been obtained by the union, which dispatched a handful of pickets to each location in the city where KCBS camera crews filmed news events.

“We can understand (the guild’s) interest in disrupting the operation of the station, but it doesn’t seem fair or in line with their profession to disrupt the flow of information to the community,” Sporkin said.

The production companies for “The Price Is Right” and “The Young and the Restless” referred calls about the picketing at their tapings to CBS. CBS press spokesman Mike Buchanan said that all inquiries were being referred to officials in New York, where the strike is centered, and officials there were unavailable for comment late Tuesday.

In addition to a 24-hour picket line that guild members set up outside Television City, KCBS and KNX in Los Angeles, picketing also continued Tuesday at the CBS and ABC news operations in New York and Washington.

CBS anchorman and correspondent Osgood and “60 Minutes” commentator Rooney briefly joined pickets outside the CBS Broadcast Center in New York in a gesture of solidarity.

“I was just on my way in to work, but these are my friends, so I walked around with them in the picket line twice,” Osgood said. “A couple of other correspondents--Harold Dow and Dick Roth--also did it. It’s just one of those things. We’re union members, too. It was just a gesture.”

Osgood and his fellow on-air correspondents belong to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which is not on strike.

According to the guild, key issues in the strike are network demands for the right to fire employees at will, unlimited use of temporary and part-time employees, and the right to let correspondents and anchors write copy for persons other than themselves.

Thursday’s meeting, the first since the strike began, was called by Timothy Germany of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Spokesmen for CBS and ABC declined comment on the pending talks, but Mona Mangan, the guild’s chief negotiator, said the meeting could lead to the resumption of negotiations.

A total of 525 guild members--news writers, editors, desk assistants, researchers, graphic artists and promotion writers--are involved in the strike, which was called after talks on a new three-year contract broke down. Only 72 of the striking writers work in Los Angeles. The guild said 315 striking members work for CBS and 210 for ABC. None of the ABC members work on the West Coast.

The majority of the more than 8,000 members of the Writers Guild of America write for motion pictures or television entertainment programs and are bound under an article of their own contract not to strike during the life of the agreement. That agreement does not expire until Feb. 29, 1988.

Sympathy from AFTRA, the IBEW and other entertainment and communications industry unions has proven to be crucial in the first two days of the walkout. Late Tuesday, the Screen Actors Guild informally gave permission to its 67,000 members to join the picket lines in Los Angeles, according to SAG spokesman Mark Locher.

As the guild strike went into its second day, another, larger union--the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians--opened negotiations Tuesday morning with NBC on a new four-year contract.

Those talks, held in San Diego, will affect 2,800 members that the union says work for NBC. The majority are technicians, but news writers and news producers also are represented by NABET. That union’s contract expires at midnight March 31.

Dennis McDougal reported from Los Angeles and Jay Sharbutt from New York.