Negotiators Urge Writers to Reject New Contract Offer

A bargaining committee for the striking Writers Guild of America recommended rejection of a new contract offer from Hollywood’s movie and television producers.

The move Thursday threatened to open a new and more troubling phase in the 15-week-old strike, during which producers and the union might have little choice but to step up efforts to split each others’ ranks.

At a press conference, guild negotiators said they would refer their negative recommendation to the union’s board today. Brian Walton, chief negotiator for the 9,000-member union, said he believes the board will convene a membership meeting as early as next week.

If a meeting is convened, the contract might or might not be submitted to members for a vote, Walton said. In previous votes, members have strongly supported union leadership.

Different Terms

The contract offer, which followed three weeks of marathon bargaining, included terms substantially different from those offered by the companies in two previous offers.

Among other things, it offered to establish a permanent guild-management committee that would oversee writers’ creative rights; to increase minimum compensation and residuals by 14.7% over a four-year contract term, and to submit a proposed formula putting one-hour TV residuals on a percentage rather than a fixed-fee basis--a change eagerly sought by management--to review by a neutral arbitrator in 1991.

In a statement, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a company bargaining group, claimed that writers and producers had “reached substantial accord on all major issues except foreign residuals.”

“It’s not that simple,” Walton told reporters at the press conference outside alliance headquarters in Sherman Oaks. He maintained that failure to agree on foreign residuals negated the crucial tentative agreement on residuals for one-hour domestic TV shows.

Offer 2 Alternatives

In the foreign area, the producers offered two alternatives: either a 14.7% increase in the current fixed residual schedule over four years, or a percentage formula that would cut residuals for movies and TV shows that do not sell well abroad, while raising them for big hits.

The guild, which argues that the 14.7% increase will not cover expected inflation, wants to keep current fixed residuals as a minimum in the foreign area, and add a percentage of sales.

“I defy anyone to show me a reasonable expectation that what (the writers) are asking in the foreign area will give them . . . increased pay over the life of the contract,” MCA Inc. President Sidney Sheinberg said of the guild’s principal remaining demand.

Sheinberg claimed that foreign sales have generally been too small to generate income for writers under the requested formula. But he said the companies would not grant the formula, because they did not want to establish a precedent for increasing residuals at a time when many TV shows do not turn a profit.

The guild has claimed that foreign sales are booming.

The committee’s rejection vote appeared likely to sharpen tactics on both sides of the dispute.

For the guild, that could mean a stepped up drive to split company ranks by soliciting separate agreements with more production companies, perhaps by loosening the terms of a model independent contract that has already been signed by about 100 small producers since it was introduced several weeks ago.

Meanwhile, film executives have said the producers may take out trade paper advertisements next week in an apparent attempt to win backing for a settlement from union members over the heads of guild leadership.

The Writers Coalition, a splinter group within the guild, on Thursday issued a statement calling on guild leaders to place “the contract on the floor for a vote by the membership to determine whether they wish to accept or reject it.”