Settlement Is Reported in Hollywood Driver Strike

Striking Teamster drivers and entertainment industry executives reached a tentative agreement Sunday to settle their 3-week-old strike, sources close to the negotiations disclosed.

The settlement is subject to approval by a vote of members of North Hollywood-based Teamsters Local 399, which represents the 2,100 studio drivers. The local will have a special meeting to vote on the pact later this week, but the precise date and time has not been set, sources said.

The agreement was reached at the Grenelefe Resort, about 40 miles from Orlando, Fla. Negotiations resumed there last week because the Teamsters executive board had been meeting at the resort.

The sources who disclosed the settlement would not reveal any of the terms, other than to say that each side had made some “advances” and that both had to give in on some of their demands.

The sources spoke on condition of being guaranteed anonymity.

William J. McCarthy, the Teamsters’ national president, took an active role in the negotiations, as did Nicholas Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Several studio labor relations chiefs and several Teamster vice presidents, as well as Earl Bush, president of Local 399, also played a significant role in the bargaining.

The strike began Oct. 3, after several months of fruitless bargaining.

Pay Cuts Demanded

Representatives of the alliance demanded that some drivers accept wage freezes and that others take pay cuts. For example, the producers asked that up to 200 limousine, van and station wagon drivers accept a $2.61-an-hour pay cut from their current $16.61-an-hour wage rate.

Representatives of the studios said the cuts were needed in order to make the major studios competitive with non-union operators in Hollywood as well as out-of-state producers who pay non-union drivers considerably less. They asserted that the drivers’ pay had gone up 45.3% since 1982, while the cost of living had gone up only 22%.

Union representatives countered by saying that the studios were profitable and that many studio executives made very high salaries.

The producers also have sought changes in overtime pay rules. For example, they sought to pay straight time for all work up to 40 hours, including that performed on weekends. Currently, drivers who work on weekends are paid overtime.

The strike came as Hollywood companies were gearing up production for a late-starting television season, which had been delayed because of a 154-day strike of the Writers Guild of America against the producers earlier this year.

Several hundred electricians and laborers also have been on strike since early October.

It was not clear what the impact of the Teamsters agreement would be on those walkouts. But the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 40, which represents studio electricians, told its members on a hot line tape Sunday that the local’s executive board would hold a meeting this morning.

Times researcher Janet Lundblad assisted in the preparation of this article.