Directors to Strike NBC, Two Studios : Guild Board Votes Tuesday Walkout in Earnings Rift

The Directors Guild of America’s national board called Saturday for a selective strike against Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros., and the NBC television network beginning Tuesday morning.

“Technically, we’re at war,” guild President Gilbert Cates said of the decision to launch the first strike in the guild’s 51-year existence.

The partial work stoppage by the 8,500-member guild could severely curtail movie and television production at two of Hollywood’s largest studios. It would also add to the woes of NBC, the nation’s top-rated network, which is already contending with a strike by 2,800 of its 8,000 employees in a separate action by the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET).

Offers Rejected

The 21-member DGA board chose the strike targets after voting unanimously Saturday to reject final contract offers from the three major television networks and a bargaining group for more than 200 movie and television producers. Guild leaders said other companies could become strike targets at any time.

Cates said the final offers--presented to guild negotiators late Friday night--contained what he called “insulting” demands for reductions in the basic compensation and residuals paid to directors, assistant directors, unit production managers and other guild members.

Cates said no further talks were scheduled in separate negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a bargaining group for the production companies, and with the TV networks. The guild’s former contract expired June 30.

Producers Take Issue

The producers said they were “disappointed” by the strike decision, and took sharp issue with the guild’s characterization of the producers’ demands as “rollbacks.”

The producers claimed they had agreed with guild negotiators on the basic concept, but not the exact formulas, for restructuring residual payments in syndicated television and the pay-per-view exhibition of movies.

The producers also said they were offering wage increases totaling 8% over the life of the new three-year contract. According to the producers’ statement, moreover, the guild has continued to demand a 50% increase in its share of videocassette revenues and increases as high as 40% in compensation for making some television series.

The strike could complicate NBC’s efforts to broadcast the All-Star baseball game Tuesday night. About 250 members of the guild work on sports programs, news programs and soap operas produced by the network and its affiliated stations. NBC management personnel already are filling in for the NABET technicians and others who struck the network and its stations June 29.

If the guild does walk out Tuesday, every NBC soap opera and game show taped at an NBC facility would be affected.

“We’re very upset with (the DGA’s strike decision). But we plan to go on with our programming and scheduling,” said John D’Angelo, who oversees associate directors and stage managers for NBC.

The guild strike would immediately affect such NBC News programs as the top-rated “Today” show and the “NBC Nightly News.”

“Late Night With David Letterman,” which is taped in New York and now is in reruns, is due to resume production in midweek, and thus also would be affected by the directors strike.

However, the network’s “Saturday Night Live” currently is in reruns and is not due to resume production until October, NBC said, and thus would not immediately be affected. Nor would the network’s hit, “The Cosby Show,” which is taped in Brooklyn but not due to return to production until August.

In this decade Hollywood has suffered through two major industrywide strikes. In 1980, a 2 1/2-month actors’ strike stopped most film and TV production, threw at least 30,000 people out of work, and stalled about $450 million in related spending. In 1982, writers struck for three months and delayed the start of the fall television season by several weeks. Residuals--payments made to directors and others when movies and programs are rerun or put on cassettes after their initial showing--were an issue in both strikes.

Total residual payments to DGA members were about $50 million last year. While that amount is small compared to the billions of dollars spent on production, it has become a point of contention because many unions enjoy similar payments. Producers complained of the rapidly rising cost of making movies and television shows and have argued they should not have to pay residuals until the productions are making profits.

DGA officials declined to say why they chose the three companies as targets. “It’s an odd grab bag,” Wertheim & Co. entertainment analyst David Londoner said of the choices.

Strong Companies

Londoner noted that both Warner Bros., which is owned by New York-based Warner Communications Inc., and Columbia, which is owned by Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co., are financially strong, and thus better able to withstand a strike than some weaker production companies.

Both Warner and Columbia have their main production facilities at the Burbank Studios, where about 1,000 members of the DGA and other Hollywood unions briefly set up an “informational” picket line last week without staging a work stoppage.

If the directors succeed in shutting down TV production at Warner and Columbia, several thousand people could find themselves out of work just as most shows are scheduled to resume production after the customary early summer hiatus. It wasn’t clear how many workers normally are employed by the two studios during the heavy summer production season, nor precisely how many of those are guild members.

Shows at least partly produced by Warner for next fall include: “Growing Pains” (ABC); “My Sister Sam” (CBS); “Head of the Class” (ABC), and “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” (CBS).

Shows at least partly produced by Columbia include: “Designing Women” (CBS); “The New Mike Hammer” (CBS), and “Starman” (ABC).

Like most Hollywood studios, Columbia and Warner speeded up movie production recently so that most films for fall and next Christmas would be finished before the guild’s contract expired.

Warner has been one of Hollywood’s strongest movie producers in recent years, and currently ranks second (to Paramount) in box-office share, with about 14.6% of total ticket sales. It’s biggest hit now showing is “Witches of Eastwick,” which took in a total of $41 million at the box office.

Warner’s upcoming films include “Empire of the Sun,” directed by Steven Spielberg and scheduled for Christmas release.

Management’s Plans

Columbia currently ranks 10th in box office share, with just 2.1% of total ticket sales for the year. Guild leaders may believe Columbia would be more amenable to a separate settlement than other studios because its new managers, including recently appointed chairman David Puttnam, are eager to get a new slate of movies before the public.

Guild membership is relatively small in comparison to the roughly 150,000 workers employed directly and indirectly by movie and TV companies in California. But the union is both prestigious and potent, since its members include many supervisors, and virtually all of the star quality directors--Steven Spielberg, John Huston, Joe Dante, and others--without whom most major studio films could not be made.

The guild’s board voted Saturday to increase its $2-million strike fund by collecting 5% of the paychecks of all guild members who are permitted to keep working during the selective strike. A guild spokesman said union officials were still considering how the fund would be used and what benefits might be paid to strikers.

The guild has received strong expressions of support from the Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and other Hollywood unions. But there remains a question as to whether individual members of those unions will honor guild picket lines.

Separately, the DGA’s national convention on Saturday elected Cates, 53, to a third two-year term as guild president.

Jay Sharbutt contributed to this story from New York. Diane Haithman and Alan Miller contributed from Los Angeles.