Writers won’t picket Grammys

The 50th Annual Grammy Awards will not have a picket line waiting for the limos.

The board of directors of the Writers Guild of America, West, said Tuesday it had voted not to publicly protest the music industry’s annual award show, scheduled for Feb. 10 at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

This month, after the Golden Globes telecast collapsed when the Screen Actors Guild said it would advise its members not to cross a writers’ picket line, the producers of the Grammys launched a very public campaign to distance “music’s biggest night” from the divisive issues that are at the center of the 11-week WGA strike.

The Grammy producers had requested an interim contract to allow their show to go forward, but WGA spokesman Gregg Mitchell said Tuesday that no agreement had “yet been reached.” The announced decision to forgo picketing, however, suggests that a deal may be forthcoming.

The decision takes pressure off producers who are trying to book the performers on the CBS show as well as nominees such as Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and Queen Latifah, who also have memberships in the Screen Actors Guild.

--

-- Geoff Boucher