Labor Woes Threaten Shutdown of Films, TV

Hollywood took one more step toward a complete shutdown Monday as 2,800 members of the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians completed their first 24 hours on picket lines outside NBC facilities in seven U.S. cities and about 8,500 members of the Directors Guild of America moved closer to their own walkout.

Combined with a 2-week-old strike of 200 commercial and cartoon voice-over members of the Screen Actors Guild, the spate of work stoppages could cripple the entertainment and broadcast industries--particularly the nation’s top-rated network.

NBC and its owned-and-operated television and radio stations tried conducting business as usual Monday, despite the absence of one-third of its 8,000-member work force.

“So far everything seems to be all right,” NBC News President Larry Grossman said Monday.

‘Minor Glitches’

His division’s programs, which include the “Today” show, had a “few minor glitches here and there” but no problems otherwise.

At KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, the screen went blank momentarily, sound tracks faded and camera crews ran into picketing problems, but very few of the problems were apparent in viewers’ living rooms.

“It’s anticipated that it’s going to be a pretty long strike,” said NABET videotape maintenance supervisor and six-year KNBC veteran Bill Clark during his picketing stint outside the NBC studio gates in Burbank on Monday afternoon.

One of about 100 union members picketing the six entrances to the studios, Clark predicted that the strike could last at least two months.

Clark and others on the picket line say that the real brunt of the walkout will not be felt by the network for another week or two, when unmaintained technical equipment begins to break down and management personnel grow weary of 16-hour workdays and seven-day workweeks.

But, NABET strikers were quick to point out, a threatened walkout by network directors and assistant directors as part of a larger Directors Guild of America work stoppage could hasten NBC’s production troubles.

The 51-year-old guild, which has been unable to reach an agreement with film and television producers during more than a month of talks, could join NABET on the picket lines within the week, according to guild officials. In addition to NBC, however, a guild strike would hit every major network, as well as every major film studio in Hollywood.

“We’re still very far apart,” guild President Gilbert Cates said, as talks continued Monday between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a bargaining group for movie and TV companies and the major networks.

The guild’s current contract expires at midnight today. An industrywide strike by directors and their assistants could come as early as Friday if guild members reject management proposals at votes in Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday and Thursday.

On a third front, the Screen Actors Guild and representatives of five Hollywood-based animation studios will return to the bargaining table today before federal mediator Leonard Farrell.

SAG’s voice-actor branch struck the studios two weeks ago after yearlong negotiations broke down over key issues that included the actors’ demand for four-hour workdays and for bonuses for performing more than one principal character voice per shift.

Press Conference

Using supervisory personnel to handle everything from cameras to TelePrompTers, KNBC’s news department has been able to keep glitches to a minimum, but news crews ran into one unanticipated problem Monday morning at a press conference called by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner.

Reiner asked a two-man KNBC camera crew to leave the room “in recognition of the strike by NABET employees.” Other local stations’ camera crews, represented by unions who are sympathetic to NABET but who are not on strike, told the district attorney’s office that they would boycott the news conference if KNBC were allowed to cover it.

“Mr. Reiner, we fully intend to comply,” said KNBC reporter Furnell Chatman, “but I feel compelled to ask you why you feel that it’s necessary.”

“Because of the concern expressed by the other technicians,” Reiner said.

Under a compromise reached with the district attorney’s office, the KNBC crew was allowed to tape a separate interview with Reiner after the news conference.

Several NBC programs, including “Saturday Night Live” and the “Tonight” show are now in summer reruns, and several game shows shot on the NBC lot in Burbank are also on production hiatus.

Syndicated Show

“Wheel of Fortune,” the nation’s top-rated syndicated show, for example, does not resume taping until July 15, “so (hosts Pat Sajak and Vanna White) won’t have to go through that (picket) line for awhile,” said a spokesman for “Wheel of Fortune” producer, Merv Griffin Productions.

As of Monday, NBC halted its regular NBC Studio Tours “for the duration of the strike,” said Jay Rodriguez, NBC vice president for corporate information.

As NBC President Robert C. Wright crossed the picket line around NBC headquarters in New York Monday morning, he gave this appraisal of prospects for resolving the strike against the company:

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a strike that should have occurred in the first place, so it’s difficult to assume what will happen.”

Wright, asked what it would take to resume negotiations, replied, “Well, it’s not difficult. The union management simply has to contact us and indicate they’re really willing to seriously try to resolve the issue.”

Job Security

NABET’s dispute with NBC is over job security, not money. The network wants the right to hire a percentage of its technical work force on a temporary per-diem basis, and union officials say such a move would create a two-tier salary system that could eventually lead to the weakening and dissolution of the union itself.

“Money’s always a concern, but it’s not the reason we struck this time,” said one picket outside the Burbank studios.

Under the old contract, the top base pay for most NABET employees was $825 a week, but a mandatory overtime provision boosted virtually every union member’s annual salary by 30% to 50%, according to union officials. As a result, the NABET pay range was $55,000 to $65,000.

In addition to being the union’s first strike against NBC since a seven-week action in 1976, the walkout also is the first by any union against the company since it and parent RCA were bought last year by General Electric for $6.3 billion.

The guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were still far from agreeing on a new three-year pact late Monday, despite some movement in tense contract talks between the groups.

A guild spokesman said the producers Monday flatly rejected two counterproposals that the guild had submitted in response to modified proposals the alliance gave it last week.

The producers had dropped an earlier demand that directors give up many residual payments on movies released on video cassettes and had softened some demands for other give-backs. But the producers continued to insist on substantial concessions from the guild.

“Their major rollbacks are still on the table,” guild spokesman Chuck Warn said.

McDougal reported from Los Angeles and Sharbutt from New York. Times staff writers Michael Cieply, Terry Pristin and Jack Mathews contributed to this article.