Strike Will Not Stand in the Way : Union Leaders Vow NBC Dispute Won’t Affect Game Tonight

Local officials and union leaders vowed Monday that tonight’s All-Star game would go on without problems, despite labor troubles at NBC, the network telecasting the game.

The Alameda County Labor Council said it would not ask unions to honor picket lines set up at the Oakland Coliseum. The National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians has been on strike against NBC, and the Directors Guild of America had targeted the network for a strike scheduled to begin early today.

But NABET agreed not to ask other unions to honor its picket lines, and Steven Martin, executive director of the labor council, said that the Directors Guild is not part of the AFL-CIO and is a “management” organization.

“As far as we’re concerned, it (the game) will be smooth,” Martin said. “ . . . Our unions and their rank and file are making full preparations to work.”

Additionally, despite pleas from NABET, Major League Players Assn. President Donald Fehr declined to call on players to shun interview requests by NBC. Fehr did, however, leave open the possibility that players may refuse on their own.

“The players will have to make the decision individually what they want to do,” Fehr said.

Meanwhile, another threatened strike by Oakland stadium concessionaires was averted by a settlement over the weekend.

Bruce Black, of NABET Local 51 in San Francisco and a member of the technicians’ negotiating team, did say that players, umpires and stadium concessionaires will wear small blue “solidarity” pins to demonstrate support for NABET. The union represents 2,800 writers, editors, technicians and artists who went on strike June 29.

Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson convinced NABET to hold an “information-only” picket at the stadium. In exchange, Wilson sent a telegram Monday to Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth urging that he convince NBC to resume talks with the technicians, a moot point, since new talks already are scheduled July 20.

By day’s end, Wilson proclaimed that the game will be “trouble free, union-wise.”

A spokesman for the commissioner, asked about potential labor trouble, was more cautious.

“We’ll see what happens,” Richard Levin said.

Wilson also suggested that Ueberroth could unilaterally take the broadcast away from NBC in favor of another network, a suggestion rejected by Levin as a violation of major league baseball’s contract with the network.

NBC plans to use $8 million worth of electronic gear to cover the All-Star game, including 11 stationary cameras, one hand-held minicam, a camera in an orbiting blimp, and 11 videotape replay machines. All will be handled by management and supervisory personnel filling in for striking NABET members.

Harry Coyle, preparing for his 31st telecast of the All-Star game, called it his toughest assignment ever with NBC Sports, because of the labor problems.

To call it an awkward situation is to understate the case, said Coyle, a charter member of the guild and three-time Emmy winner whose sports-directing credits include 35 World Series, 27 Rose Bowls and 12 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. basketball championships.

Under normal circumstances, Coyle, who is coordinating producer of NBC’s telecast of the All-Star game, might also do some directing.

But if there is a staff directors’ strike against NBC, he said, he would wear only his producer’s hat and do nothing that was under Directors Guild jurisdiction. NBC said that management and supervisory personnel would take over its company-wide staff directing chores in the event of a walkout.

If there’s a walkout, Coyle added, he won’t even be at his usual battle station in the NBC Sports truck parked outside the stadium but, rather, will stay in the announcers’ booth.

“Because I’ve got to admit: If I’m standing in the truck--and I’ve been in that damn truck all my life--what’s to stop me from bursting out and saying something “doing a director’s work” from pure second nature?”

“A lot of them are my old buddies,” he said of those from NBC Sports who are on strike. “I’ve worked with them all my life, and I’m very close to them. So, boy, you talk about a guy who’s torn. . . . “

Dan Morain reported from Oakland and Jay Sharbutt from New York.