TO WORK OR NOT DURING A STRIKE? : Directors Guild, Producers at Odds Over Non-Union Labor Should a Stoppage Occur

Come June 30, would-be screen directors may get a golden opportunity to launch careers in television and the movies.

Or they just might ruin their career prospects forever--depending on whom you listen to.

In an increasingly acrimonious dispute, movie and television producers are locking horns with the Directors Guild of America over the possible use of non-union labor, including university students, if the guild strikes when its contract expires at the end of this month.

For several weeks, some television producers have been quietly lining up non-union talent to replace some directors, production managers, stage managers and other DGA personnel in the event of a strike. Sources involved with TV operations at several studios--including MCA Inc., Walt Disney Co., and Columbia Pictures--said they were aware of at least tentative recruitment efforts in the industry, although not necessarily by their own companies.

The sources said non-union workers would initially staff daytime television soap operas, and might later be used to put some prime-time TV dramas or even films into production if a strike lasted more than a few weeks.

But the DGA leaves no doubt that it plans to make life miserable, professionally speaking, for anyone who takes such jobs.

Last week, the guild used a full-page advertisement in the trade paper Variety to issue an unusually blunt warning: “If the DGA goes on strike and you work . . . you are forever closing the door on future membership in the DGA. The employers who hire you to ‘scab’ are not interested in your future, only in what you can do for them today. Remember a career is not a single job.”

In its own full-page Variety ad, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the industry’s principal bargaining group, replied: “Notwithstanding DGA threats, employees have an absolute, legally-protected right to work during a strike. Further, employees may continue to work after a strike--whether or not they are members of the Guild. The AMPTP is prepared to take appropriate legal action to enforce those rights.”

The question of strike-breaking labor--still hypothetical, since the DGA and producers continue to negotiate toward a new contract--has nonetheless become an emotionally-charged side issue.

Most replacement personnel would presumably be drawn from a pool of directors and assistants who have done non-union work for public television, cable networks and TV commercial producers. One director who has worked extensively on a non-union basis for PBS and other TV outlets confirmed that he was recently asked--and declined--to direct soap operas in case of a strike.

Friday, the Directors Guild of Canada said its national executive board approved a draft agreement under which its 1,400 members would agree not to work in the United States if the DGA strikes. The draft is being sent to DGC members for approval. Under the agreement, DGC members would pledge not to replace their U.S. counterparts on a struck DGA picture, nor to service films taken to Canada in order to avoid a strike; but members of the Canadian guild would continue to work for U.S. producers who have a history of filming in Canada, the Canadian guild said.

The strike-breaking issue has become especially sensitive because of what DGA contends are out-of-bounds inquiries by producers about the availability of university film and TV students or facilities in the event of a strike. Several TV professionals said students might conceivably be useful as assistants, but not as full directors.

“I know that UCLA was called by the representative of a major studio and asked to arrange meetings between studio representatives and students who might want to work,” guild president Gilbert Cates said in an interview.

Cates declined to identify the studio and said he didn’t know if any meetings took place.

George Schaefer, chairman of UCLA’s department of theater, film and television and a member of the DGA board, was traveling and couldn’t be reached for comment. Ruth Schwartz, the school’s recently installed vice chairman, said she wasn’t aware of any such approach.

Two sources close to the guild’s negotiating committee said they had received reports that UCLA students were being trained on the set of “Days of Our Lives,” an NBC daytime drama partially financed by Columbia’s television unit. Al Rabin, the show’s producer, declined to comment on the claims. But Rabin said: “I can tell you we plan to go ahead with the show” even if the guild strikes.

In response to those supposed incidents, Cates sent an open letter dated June 1 to 16 film and television schools in the United States. The letter advised students not to be “misled into a decision that could threaten your long-term career objectives and future membership in the DGA for the sake of a few days or weeks of employment.” Joe Saltzman, chairman of the broadcasting department of USC’s journalism school, said his division flatly turned down a request by an independent producer to use one of the school’s studios to train people (but apparently not USC students) to fill in for striking DGA personnel. “We said ‘No.’ We want it on record that we just wouldn’t get involved in a union matter,” Saltzman explained.

David Werner, assistant dean of USC’s cinema and TV school, said his unit posted Cates’ letter; but Werner wasn’t aware of any approaches to students. “We just wouldn’t jeopardize our generally close relations with the guilds” by brokering connections with student talent, Werner added.

Spokesmen for major film schools at Columbia University and New York University also said they weren’t aware of approaches.

Despite the public posturing by both the guild and the producers alliance, several entertainment executives--speaking on the condition that they not be identified--said they believed it would be extremely difficult to keep shows in production without DGA members. “Maybe a couple of shows could be produced. But you’re not going to tell me somebody who hasn’t directed network TV is going to tell an Angela Lansbury (star of “Murder, She Wrote”) what to do,” said the executive producer of one prime-time dramatic series.

One non-union assistant TV director who was trained to work on episodes of “As the World Turns,” a CBS soap opera, in case of a strike during tense DGA negotiations when the contract last came up in 1984, said she wouldn’t repeat the experience this time around. “It was so awful,” said the assistant director, who currently works for a cable network. “One actor walked out. Actors refused to rehearse in front of us.”

Carol Akiyama, an AMPTP senior vice president, pointed out that state and federal labor laws guarantee employers the right to hire non-union employees--although the current DGA contract requires the studios to pay guild-level wages and benefits to non-members.

Pointing out that studios have virtually always relied on guild directors and managers in the past, Cates predicted that producers would be quick to “disenfranchise” non-union workers after any strike was resolved. “Studios have very short memories,” he said. (Working with guild members has been usual in part because the guild has been willing to extend membership to newly hired directors and managers on a fairly routine basis.)

Akiyama said the companies would hire qualified people “without regard to their status as guild members” and would continue to judge them by performance and qualifications rather than union affiliation.

One major studio chairman, who declined to be identified, suggested that “June 30 could present a marvelous opportunity to young people who might otherwise find it very hard to break into this business.”