Writers Vote on Pact; Rejection Expected

About 2,300 striking members of the faction-ridden Writers Guild of America crammed into the Hollywood Palladium on Wednesday night to vote on a contract offer from Hollywood’s movie and TV producers that could end, or prolong, their 16-week walkout.

In an edgy, uncertain mood, the biggest guild gathering since the strike began in early March settled in for a long night of wrangling after the meeting started about 9 p.m.

Both sides agreed there was virtually no chance of the contract being accepted, and the only matter in doubt was the size of the “no” vote and how it would affect the dueling factions.

Union members who left the meeting early after casting ballots said guild executive director and chief negotiator Brian Walton received several standing ovations as he urged rejection of the offer.

“I think the strike will end soon, and it will end on favorable terms if writers in this room” reject the contract, Walton told the gathering.

And, the union members said, the lineup waiting to speak at a microphone set up for those against the contract outnumbered by a 4-to-1 margin the queue at a mike for those in favor.

About 500 guild members voted earlier Wednesday at the New York Hilton. Results of both votes were not to be released until today.

If the latest contract offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is rejected, warned TV writer-producer Stephen Cannell, one of a dissident coalition of prominent guild members endorsing the proposal, “we could well be into a strike for three more months.”

So many in the 9,000-member union turned out to vote that about 250 latecomers were locked out when all of the auditorium’s seats filled up. About 900 proxy votes also were submitted for members who did not attend, said guild President George Kirgo, who claimed to hold 100 of them personally. Kirgo and other guild leaders have strongly urged rejection of the producers’ offer.

Feelings ran high as guild faction members lobbied for their positions outside, buttonholing strikers who waited in a half-block-long line to register and enter the Palladium, where in early March the writers voted by a 95% margin to go on strike.

Some guild members opposed to the contract taunted Cannell, waving signs that read “I am not a Radio Shack writer” as Cannell spoke before TV cameras outside the auditorium. The signs referred to earlier remarks by contract supporters that the chief opponents of the offer were writers who hold jobs at Radio Shack and elsewhere, and do not earn their main income selling scripts.

Before the meeting, coalition leaders estimated that 750 writers--including a large number who work regularly, as opposed to those who sell scripts only sporadically--would endorse the contract. That number would be too small to force acceptance. But it might present a serious political problem for the guild leadership, since it would signal that a large number of writers want to end the strike.

“That’s our target, and we would consider that a victory,” Lionel Chetwynd, a spokesman for the coalition, said of the 750 figure. In the past, well over 90% of about 2,500 guild members who voted have supported union leaders.

“That would be a heavy, heavy vote against the guild leadership,” said Herb Steinberg, a spokesman for the alliance.

“That’s preposterous” said Kirgo. “If 70% of the members are against an offer, 16 weeks into a strike, that’s an extraordinary victory” for the guild leaders’ stance.

The strike has caused widespread disruption in the entertainment industry, which employs, directly and indirectly, about 230,000 people in California and contributes about $6.5 billion annually to the state’s economy.

Studio executives have predicted further layoffs and more aggressive attempts to recruit non-union writers if the strike continues.

Union leaders, meanwhile, have predicted that important producers will split ranks with the alliance and sign separate agreements with the guild if the offer is rejected.

The sides have been stalemated over the issue of domestic residuals for one-hour TV shows, and foreign residuals for TV shows and movies alike. The guild has expressed willingness to accede to a modified version of the companies request for percentage-based, as opposed to fixed-fee, residuals for the one-hour shows, but only if the producers grant a substantial increase in foreign residuals.