WGA, Producers Write Off Strike

A tentative three-year "historic agreement" between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and TV networks was hashed out Friday, averting a strike that could have shut down Tinseltown.

Although the old contract expired at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, negotiators had been pulling all-nighters for the past three days without calling for a walkout.

"People told us it couldn't be done without a protracted strike," said WGA treasurer Michael Mahern. "But we are announcing an agreement with ground-breaking improvements, and it has been accomplished without a strike."

The new deal, which was unanimously okayed by negotiators on both sides, now has to be approved by the 11,000 WGA members. If ratified, the new contract will give scribes a $41 million pay increase over three years.

Some highlights: For the first time, Fox will be considered a major network and pay full fees; writers will receive more from foreign TV sales; writers will collect residuals from DVD and video sales and video-on-demand services; and cable pay scales have been upped. The deal will also cover some Internet downloads on a project-by-project basis. (There will be further talks on the Internet issue.)

The writers got some ego-massaging concessions, too: They will be allowed on film sets and invited to premieres, press junkets and cast and crew parties.

However, the scribes failed to get one key demand: the elimination of the "a film by" credit. Writers complained that the possessory credit taken by directors unfairly dissed the screenwriter and wanted the practice stopped. Producers refused to give in (and the Directors Guild of America objected strongly) and the scribes ultimately dropped their request to avoid strike-stoking bad feelings.

The two sides sat down at the bargaining table on January 22, but suspended those initial talks on March 1. Before the second round of negotiations began April 17, the two sides were about $100 million apart and a labor action seemed inevitable.

When the WGA last went on strike in 1988, the 22-week walkout delayed the start of the fall TV season.

Hollywood has been bracing for a possible strike for months, stockpiling TV and movie scripts and speeding up production in anticipation of a walkout. To make things worse, the actors' contract expires July 1 and many insiders think the thespians will take their cue from the scribes. With the WGA reaching a deal, it could pave the way for a harmonious resolution to the pending actors unions negotiations.

A walkout by both writers and actors would have devastated the entire Los Angeles region, according to a report commissioned by L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan. The Entertainment Industry Development Corporation calculated a loss of $500 million a week. The total damage for a prolonged writers and actors strike could come close to $7 billion.

In a statement Friday, the two actors unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said: "SAG and AFTRA welcome the news [of the new deal] and we applaud their careful efforts to come to a new agreement without a work stoppage.

"Since the AMPTP and TV networks have reached an agreement with the writers, SAG and AFTRA look forward to analyzing the new WGA deal in detail to see if it will be helpful in finding a way to address the specific needs of actors in our upcoming negotiations."