Directors Urged to Vote Down Film Producers’ Offer

The threat of a crippling film industry strike neared reality late Wednesday when the national board of the Directors Guild of America recommended that its 8,500 members reject contract proposals by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

A walkout could begin as early as Friday, sources close to the negotiations said, but its full impact would only be felt next week after the July 4th holiday.

It could halt the filming and taping of most movies as well as numerous daytime and prime-time television shows.

The directors and their assistants were to vote in secret at meetings at the Beverly Hilton here and in New York Wednesday night and today. The results will not be made public until Friday in New York.

The Hilton’s International Ballroom was packed with 1,500 guild members, who listened to their negotiators recite frustration at failing to achieve any gains from studio executives.

“We will be respected or we will rock the very foundations of those high-rise offices in distant cities,” said President Gilbert Cates, citing the conglomerates who now control many studios.

Members shouted for a vote, and a show of hands indicated virtual unanimous rejection of the producers’ offer. Nevertheless, guild and industry negotiators scheduled a bargaining session for Sunday.

The rejection recommendation by the guild’s board did not include proposals covering a separate contract affecting about 1,000 network-employed news and sports directors, leaving the door open for a partial settlement.

A strike grew more likely when producers rejected a wide-ranging new proposal guild negotiators offered at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday after an all-night bargaining session. The guild’s three-year contract had expired at midnight Tuesday.

A guild spokesman said the new proposal contained a revision of the residuals system, including concessions that would reduce payments to some guild members. The producers have been demanding such a revision since talks began more than a month ago, and have also demanded rollbacks associated with one of the guild’s pension plans.

Carol Akyama, a senior vice president of the producers’ organization, said Wednesday night that the producers had not officially rejected the proposals and were still examining them.

Guild spokesman Chuck Warn, however, said the DGA negotiators received an informal indication that the proposals would be rejected. In the strike against NBC by 2,800 members of the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, there were legal ripples Wednesday after U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner ordered a non-union KNBC-TV camera crew to leave a Los Angeles news conference called to announce arrests in an alleged cocaine and heroin ring.

NBC said its camera crews henceforth will refuse to leave news conferences and that its lawyers will go to federal court today for an injunction to prevent any more such orders by public officials on public property.

NBC spokesman Jay Rodriguez said the suit will also name Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who refused to allow a non-union KNBC-TV crew to attend his news conference Monday. In that incident, Reiner permitted the crew to tape a separate interview with him later.

As Reiner had on Monday, Bonner Wednesday was acceding to the wishes of other television news crews, who said they would not roll their cameras while the substitute KNBC-TV crew was present.

When the KNBC-TV cameraman and soundman said they had orders to remain, Bonner said: “This is my space and I’m asking you to leave. If you don’t leave, I’ll have the marshal’s office remove you.”

The two were escorted to an outside waiting room by a deputy U.S. marshal. Bonner and state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp reportedly later provided details of the arrests to the KNBC crew.

Rodriguez, NBC vice president for corporate information on the West Coast, said the planned suit will “make sure that they can’t do that to us again . . . It will put anyone on notice that if they hold a news conference we’re going to refuse to leave. And if they force us to leave, we’re going to file for a permanent injunction against them, too.”

NBC, Rodriguez said, intends to “make sure we’re there to cover the news. We don’t want a separate news conference. We don’t want a special news conference. We just want to cover the news as it’s happening. It’s public property. He’s a public official. We have every right to be there.”

Rodriguez noted that the ousted crew members were “not scabs,” but regular NBC employees who were on assignment as field crews.

NABET members struck NBC early Monday after the network implemented a contract that had not been approved by the union.

On yet another front, the Screen Actors Guild has reached tentative agreement with Hanna-Barbera, one of five animation studios struck June 15 by voice actors, said Leonard Chassman, assistant executive director of SAG’s Hollywood branch.

Chassman said Hanna-Barbera could be back in production with guild members as early as next week.

Negotiations have been suspended between SAG and representatives of the four other struck animation studios--Walt Disney, Marvel, DIC and Filmation--and no date has been set for a return to the bargaining table.

Hanna-Barbera, the largest producer of animated television programs, agreed to the guild’s demand for a four-hour recording day and to pay a 10% bonus above daily minimum scale to actors asked to perform a third principal character. Those contract provisions would be phased in next year.

Times staff writer Jack Jones contributed to this article.