Local News in Brief : Writers Picket at CBS
Striking film and television writers took to the picket line outside CBS Television City in the Fairfax district Friday as their walkout entered its fifth day.
No further negotiations were scheduled, but federal mediators were working behind the scenes to get the two sides back to the bargaining table.
“We expect the strike will last three months at least,” said science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, one of the picketing writers.
George Kirgo, president of the western division of the Writers Guild of America, estimated that 3,000 writers marched around three sides of the block-square CBS complex.
Kirgo said the union had “notched down some of our proposals” before talks collapsed Thursday evening, but he gave no details.
Herb Steinberg, spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said the union demands “are so far off from a realistic assessment” that “further talks would be fruitless.”
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