Alliance Offers Writers 14.7% Pay Increase Over 4 Years

Motion picture and television producers gave striking scriptwriters a new offer Thursday that they contended has substantial increases in several areas, but the union withheld comment as it reviewed the package.

The new offer represented an across-the-board increase of 14.7% over a four-year contract and a value of $71 million, said Herb Steinberg, a spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The producers’ original offer was valued by the alliance at $52 million.

Steinberg told reporters at the alliance’s headquarters in Sherman Oaks that producers and the Writers Guild of America had “reached substantial accord on all major issues except foreign residuals.”

But guild spokeswoman Cheryl Rhoden said that remark was “overstated and premature.”

“We have not reached an accord on the economic package,” she said.

Rhoden said it would be inappropriate to comment on the new offer while the union negotiating committee was reviewing it.

The guild, in a statement released Wednesday, said it was unlikely that the producers’ proposal would be accepted.

“We do not have a negotiated deal with the alliance at this time,” chief union negotiator Brian Walton said in the statement circulated among the guild’s 9,600 members. “Although I haven’t seen the offer . . . it appears it will not contain what we have told the alliance would be necessary (to settle the strike).”

Steinberg said the writers have been contending that no economic settlement was made because “they claim unless we take their offer on foreign they will take nothing.”

The union has stated that it wants substantial increases for foreign distribution but has not said what its recent demands were in terms of percentage.

The producers offered either a 14.7% increase or a sliding scale that could pay more if a show does well in the foreign market or less if it does poorly.

Efforts to end the 15-week-old strike come on the eve of production season for the new television season.

Several sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity have said that the guild has accepted a producers’ formula based on sales success for syndicated one-hour television shows. The previous formula had a fixed revenue. Producers have claimed that the market for such sales has softened.

But because the guild has accepted a management proposal in one-hour shows, sources said, union negotiators want a substantial increase for foreign residuals, an area that has not been negotiated for 18 years.

Meanwhile, the union has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming that 13 production companies have failed to bargain in good faith by withholding information on non-union writers employed since the strike began March 7.

The guild claims it is entitled to the information under NLRB precedent, but the alliance has already filed charges with the NLRB, claiming that the guild is not entitled to specific details on non-union employment.

“We aren’t going to give them any information, period,” Steinberg said.

The strike has idled production, forced several television series to end their seasons early, caused layoffs of part-time and clerical workers and delayed work calls for an estimated 20,000 actors and production crew members who normally begin reporting for work this month.

Producers estimated losses of $15.75 million through mid-April in their only accounting of losses caused by the strike.