Writers Drop Demand and a Picket Plan

In a major step toward ending a 12-week walkout, Hollywood’s striking writers on Tuesday dropped their demand for extended jurisdiction over reality and animation work and agreed to extend informal talks with Hollywood production companies, even as they decided not to picket next month’s Grammy Awards telecast.

The decision to drop the jurisdiction demand removed a major impediment to reaching a deal similar to last week’s settlement between the production companies and the Directors Guild of America. In a letter to members, leaders of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East said they would continue efforts to organize reality and animation writers, but would do so apart from the contract negotiation.

In a vote disclosed Tuesday, the West Coast guild also elected not to picket the Grammy ceremony, scheduled for broadcast by CBS on Feb. 10, though it is unclear whether writers will be allowed to work for the show.

The decision set off a collective sigh of relief from the beleaguered music industry, which had feared that picket lines would deter artists from performing on or attending this year’s Grammies, a crucial promotional platform for record labels and artists, and for CBS.
The writers’ vote follows a fierce — and public — campaign by Neil Portnow, the chief executive of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which organizes the awards, to allow the show to proceed unimpeded.

“This really creates a comfortable environment for everybody to come,” Mr. Portnow said. Though the writers guild had not reached a separate interim agreement that would allow its writers to work on the Grammy telecast, Mr. Portnow said, “we’ve got time” until the Feb. 10 program and added that, “with all due respect to the writers, we’re really about the music.”
Formal negotiations between writers and producers broke off more than six weeks ago. Since last week, ferocious debate has swirled within the writers’ guilds as to whether they should pursue an immediate agreement patterned on the directors’ deal.

Writers as prominent as John Wells, a former president of the Writers Guild of America West, have argued in favor of the directors’ agreement, which addresses issues similar to those facing writers, especially regarding compensation for digital media. But leaders of the writers’ guilds and of the allied Screen Actors Guild have cautioned against knee-jerk acceptance of the directors’ terms, which, among other things, pegged the residual for electronic downloads of films and television shows at roughly double the rate paid when programming is distributed on DVD.
Patric M. Verrone, current president of the West Coast guild, had been a staunch advocate of the demand for reality and animation jurisdiction. But production companies argued that they were powerless to grant it, in part because many writers in that area are already covered by other unions.

At Paramount Pictures’ lot on Melrose Avenue, an all-day writers’ march on Tuesday sought to associate the guild’s fight with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s union struggles. As of 10 a.m., about 200 writers and supporters were walking a 35-minute circuit around the studio’s perimeter. Pickets had been asked by their leaders to bring drums, guitars, tambourines and American flags to the march, to give it what the guild’s Web site called a “festive” air. At midmorning, however, most marchers carried only their standard placards.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23strike.html?ex=1358830800&en=5b2c79be4074ef0b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss