Writer's Strike Thread

[Chris B]

LOL Dan! The East Coast soap writers are among the worst, so that would definitely be interesting. I'd like to protest their dreadful writing. Just imagine McTavish, Kriezman, B&E, Passanante and Higley trading ideas.

*vomits*

[JackPeyton]

ill go to the one in cali.. but id need to know more dteails than the date. like where is it? what time?

[JackPeyton]

LOL Dan! The East Coast soap writers are among the worst, so that would definitely be interesting. I'd like to protest their dreadful writing. Just imagine McTavish, Kriezman, B&E, Passanante and Higley trading ideas.

*vomits*

why would you put that horrid vision in anyones head!!! why?!

[Dan]

LOL Dan! The East Coast soap writers are among the worst, so that would definitely be interesting. I'd like to protest their dreadful writing. Just imagine McTavish, Kriezman, B&E, Passanante and Higley trading ideas.

*vomits*

Good Lord Almighty what a horrible thought!

[juppiter]

My brother lives in Brooklyn.... If it were on a weekend I'd so drive down and pay him a visit.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

SID is reporting that Y&R's shut down production a bit early in December because they've run out of scripts. I'm guessing they're taking some time to assemble scabs and maybe they aren't following Latham and Hammer's long-term storyline projections. Y&R typically shuts down in December for a holiday break, but it's usually later in the month.

[Marco Dane]

If the writers strike continue through next year I hope they show classic episodes

[YRBB]

Long-term projections?

You mean..... they're not making it up as they go?

Seriously, this sounds like great news.

[Chris B]

One scary thing about the SID article is that "a source close to LML" said she's not being fired post-strike. Then an unnamed LML-staffer said they can't wait to return and get the show back on track (from the scabs). Something about that comment caused me to crack up, lol.

[Toups]

One scary thing about the SID article is that "a source close to LML" said she's not being fired post-strike. Then an unnamed LML-staffer said they can't wait to return and get the show back on track (from the scabs). Something about that comment caused me to crack up, lol.

"Get the show back on track" - LOL

I actually trust Josh Griffith and the Fi-Core writer who's helping him a lot more than LML and her crew.

I can't reveal the other writer because I will no longer post the names of Fi-Core writers - I'll post the names when the strike ends.

[Sylph]

December 16, 2007

Letterman Seeks Deal With Writers’ Union

By BILL CARTER and MICHAEL CIEPLY (NY Times)

In what may be the first break in the entertainment writers’ strike, David Letterman is pursuing a deal with the Writers Guild of America that would allow his late-night show on CBS to return to the air in early January with the usual complement of material from his writers, even if the strike is still continuing.

Executives from Mr. Letterman’s production company said Saturday that they were hopeful they would have an interim agreement in place with the guild as early as this week. That could potentially put Mr. Letterman at an enormous advantage over most of his late-night colleagues.

Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central has also been urging an interim agreement and would begin working toward getting one in place on Monday morning, according to a representative. But Mr. Letterman is in a stronger position because, unlike Mr. Stewart, his show is not owned by the network but by Mr. Letterman’s independent production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. (So is the show that follows it on CBS, “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” which would return with writers under the proposed interim agreement.) The news of Mr. Letterman’s potential deal came at the same time the WGA took a new tack that could potentially throw the negotiations into procedural chaos. The writers’ representatives said they planned on Monday to exercise a legal right to insist that the major studios and network production companies bargain with the guild individually rather than as a group.

In a letter sent to members on Saturday, negotiators for the Writers Guild of America East and the Writers Guild of America West said: “Each signatory employer is required to bargain with us individually if we make a legal demand that it do so. We will make this demand on Monday.”

The writers’ move was aimed at breaking what has been, at least in public, a united front by a small number of media conglomerates — General Electric, News Corporation, Sony, Time Warner, The Walt Disney Company, Viacom and CBS — whose entertainment units dominate the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, an industry bargaining group.

In a statement, the producers alliance immediately dismissed the move as “grasping for straws.” J. Nicholas Counter III, president of the alliance, said in an interview that his group remained the bargaining agent for each of the represented companies, whether they proceeded individually or together.

The alliance “represents all the companies both individually and on a multiemployer basis,” Mr. Counter said. In all, about 350 production companies are represented by the alliance, whose stance is controlled by representatives of the big corporations.

Even if forced to bargain separately — and representatives from both sides said they expected the unions’ position to be challenged — the companies would remain free to deal through the alliance and would be permitted to let other companies monitor their separate talks, allowing them to remain on common ground.

Since the alliance was formed in 1982, no Hollywood union has tried to force individual bargaining across the board. But Anthony R. Segall, general counsel for the West Coast guild, pointed out that interim contracts with various companies have been reached during prior walkouts. Such contracts, said Mr. Segall, typically use “most favored nation” arrangements that promise signers final terms at least as favorable as those signed by any other company.

No agreement had been reached with Mr. Letterman’s proposal as of late Saturday afternoon, according to both Mr. Segall and representatives of Mr. Letterman’s company. Rob Burnett, the chief executive of Worldwide Pants, said in a statement: “Because we are an independent production company, we are able to pursue an interim agreement with the Guild without involving CBS in that pursuit.” He said the company had been seeking a separate deal with the Guild since the start of the strike, adding, “We’re happy that the Guild has now adopted an approach that might make this possible.”

All of television’s late-night shows have been off the air for six weeks since the strike was called. The hosts have been paying the salaries of their non-writing staffs over the past several weeks.

The hosts have been debating when they might be able to return and it has been expected that at least the two chief NBC late-night stars, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien — both of whom are the longtime ratings leaders in their time slots — would announce early Monday a plan to come back, probably on Jan. 2.

It is expected that any interim agreement with Worldwide Pants would bind the company to accepting whatever terms are finally agreed to when the writers and studios settle the strike. CBS executives have been aware of Mr. Letterman’s efforts, said Chris Ender, a spokesman for the network. He said in a statement that CBS respected Mr. Letterman’s effort to secure the interim agreement but emphasized that CBS remained unified with the producers in their negotiations with the Guild.

[Sylph]

December 13, 2007

With Writers Out, Directors Offer Their Own Talks

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

LOS ANGELES — Movie and television directors said Thursday that they were prepared to begin bargaining toward a new contract with production companies after the New Year holiday, a move that could realign Hollywood’s troubled labor front.

The contract between the Directors Guild of America, which represents about 13,500 directors and associated production workers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, an industry bargaining group, is to expire on June 30.

The talks can be expected to jolt striking screenwriters, who walked out almost six weeks ago after failing to reach a deal with the producers’ alliance. Members of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East had lobbied directors to stay away from the bargaining table while the writers were still trying to negotiate with the companies..

The writers’ unions said Thursday that they had filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the companies of failing to bargain in good faith.

Talks between the producers and the writers collapsed last Friday, and leaders of the directors’ guild, who have often found an advantage in settling their deals early, decided that they could no longer hold back.

In a letter to members, the guild’s president, Michael Apted, said, “We have decided that the D.G.A. must go forward with our own negotiations.” But Mr. Apted said the guild would wait until January to give the writers and the companies “one last chance to get back to the table.”

In an interview, Mr. Apted said formal talks would proceed only if informal discussions made it clear that the directors and companies were focused on the same issues. “We don’t want to waste anyone’s time,” he said. He characterized the time preceding the talks as “a two-week grace period” that was intended to emphasize the directors’ “respect for a sister guild.”

Negotiations for the directors will be led by Mr. Apted; Gilbert Cates, the guild’s secretary-treasurer; and Jay Roth, its national executive director. They are expected to offer a new perspective on many of the issues on which producers and writers have been stuck.

Among those assisting the directors will be Kenneth Ziffren, an industry lawyer who is credited with having brokered an end to the five-month writers’ strike in 1988. They will come armed with independent research that could offer an approach to compensation for the distribution of movies and TV shows over the Internet.

The directors’ involvement is expected to send both producers and writers scrambling for advantage. Screenwriters may find support for their demands that companies raise their offers for new-media compensation. Employers may hope to arrive at a deal that will attract some writers’ guild members to advocate settlement on similar terms.

The directors’ guild has struck only once. In 1987, directors walked out for three hours on the East Coast and for minutes in the West before settling.

In 2001 and 2004, they reached agreements months before existing contracts expired. Directors’ guild leaders have been eager to get their talks under way, but held back to avoid complicating the negotiations with the writers.

The producers’ alliance said in a statement that it welcomed talks with the directors, but added: “No one should be under any illusion. This will still be an extremely difficult process.”

The writers, also in a statement, said of the directors, “We wish them well, but they do not represent writers.”

In a letter to members sent by e-mail Wednesday, David Young, executive director of the West Coast writers’ guild, and the group’s negotiating committee urged steadfastness in the face of the companies’ insistence that writers drop demands for jurisdiction over reality television and animation writers, among other things, before talks could resume.

Some writers have privately urged the leaders to narrow their proposals in an effort to restart negotiations. Counseling otherwise, the letter said: “The negotiating committee is not crazy. The guild is not scared or divided over the principles of this strike.”

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Oh Toups, you tease!

[Toups]

LOL Gotta follow my source's instructions.

Did anyone go today? I'm wondering how it went on both coasts.

[Chris B]

Toups is the other writer a LML writer? If not, I'll trust your judgement! BTW, any idea if anyone on B&B went FiCore? Kay Alden and Brad Bell didn't sign that striking writers thing.