Writers Strike: The AMPTP says it wants to set the record straight on writer’s guild comments since talks hit a wall on Friday

By Alex Ben Block

HOLLYWOOD, CA. (Hollywood Today) 12/10/2007 – When the two sides in a labor action do their negotiating in the press, you know things are going from bad to worse. That is the case in the strike by Hollywood movie and TV writers, who are entering their sixth week of a job action against major studios and the broadcast networks.

In the latest volley, called “Setting The Record Straight,“ the AMPTP has made public its response to recent comments by the writers guild leaders about why and how the negotiations abruptly ended around 6 p.m. this past Friday at a hotel in Century City, California.

Calling some of the writer’s most recent statements “factually inaccurate,” the AMPTP says the fact is that they have “repeatedly told the WGA that the union’s proposals on jurisdiction in reality television and animation were completely unacceptable,” so it should not have been a surprise.

The AMPTP says it is untrue that the talks broke down over “how prosperity is going to be shared,” as SEIU (public service workers union) President Andy Stern was quoted as saying in the L.A. Times.

Per the AMPTP, the truth is, “The negotiations broke down primarily over one of the most old-fashioned issues of all: The desire of the WGA’s organizers to increase their own power and prestige by expanding the jurisdiction of the union over reality television and animation writers.”

While there is a grain of truth to this, because the union is pushing hard for jurisdiction over new media areas, and to kill a no strike clause, the AMPTP response ultimately falls short of the truth. The ultimatum that the AMPTP insists the writers must take come off the table include a key economic question: At what point in the revenue stream do writers get to dip in for a taste?

One of the ultimatum issues is whether this taste will come out of the distributor’s gross sales or the production entities gross proceeds. The distributor is the network or studio. However, a sister company, the production entity, is the actual signatory to the writers guild contract. The companies insist these are separate operations, and that there is no way the writers will get a share of the distributors gross since the distributors don’t even have a contract with them.

The writers say its all one company and that the producers share is the net profits from the distributor or what have been called in the past “monkey points,” meaning that they are hard to figure out thanks to dubious Hollywood accounting usually a much lower sum, or they are non existent. In other words by the time the distributor pays the bills and takes a profit, then puts it all through the accounting department mix master, there won’t be much left for writers, actors, directors and producers to share.

The AMPTP in its statement also takes a shot at Patric Verrone, President of the WGA West, who was not at the negotiations on Friday because he attended other guild events. They also take to task Michael Winship, President of the WGA East, who sent a letter to members earlier today calling the AMPTP liars. In his letter, Winship said, “If I hadn’t seen and heard it with my own eyes, I might not have believed the extraordinary depths of their dissembling. Last week in Los Angeles, I sat in the caucus room as we waited for the studios and networks to come to the table and negotiate. And waited. And waited.”

The AMPTP response: “Mr. Winship may have been in the caucus room, but he never entered the negotiating room, where the negotiating committees from both sides met. The fact is that neither Mr. Verrone, who was at a rock concert rally, nor Mr. Winship saw fit to sit across the table from the producers for this critical negotiating session.”

Management also blasted statements by John Bowman of the WGA that the AMPTP did not “come in wheeling and dealing.”

The AMPTP response, under the heading: “The Facts” was: The WGA’s organizers refused repeated requests by the producers to begin negotiations much earlier, in the spring of 2007. Had negotiations begun when the producers wanted them to start, perhaps the industry would not now be in the midst of this strike.”

Countering earlier statements that there was never going to be a part two of their proposals to present to writers on Friday, the AMPTP now says it did provide enhanced and new proposals on Friday at 2:30 p.m.

The two sides each say the other then said they needed to take a break to discuss those new proposals. Per the AMPTP: “The WGA itself suggested a series of “sidebar” discussions at which they insisted on setting aside the critical issue of new media to discuss production of documents, transfer of electronic data, expedited arbitration and the timing of residual payments from MyNetwork TV and the CW.”

Management brings up a statement attributed to Bowman, who wrote “The AMPTP insists we let them do to the Internet what they did to home video.” This is a reference to the 1980s when writers say management told them home video was new, and they needed time to see if it was a real business, and that they would make it up later; but never did.

Now the writers feel this is being told to them again about new media, but this time they are distrustful of what management is offering.

In the AMPTP response, the producers trumpet as if were a good thing that their plan is to only offer even small gains for three years and then this will all have to be negotiated over again: “The AMPTP’s proposed New Economic Partnership offered to share producers’ (my emphasis added) revenues from the Internet with writers. Because the producers appreciate how quickly the Internet marketplace is changing, the New Economic Partnership’s Internet provisions would sunset in three years – thus allowing all of these issues to be re-examined anew in light of marketplace changes. The WGA’s analogies to the relatively stable home video marketplace are therefore unfair.”

The writers have said they were tricked during the final days of negotiations before the contract expired on Oct. 31. The WGA says it was told through a back channel source that if they took DVD residual increases off the table, management would come back with a scheme to pay residuals for programming streamed on the Internet, and other items.

Not true, says the AMPTP: “The AMPTP never demanded that the WGA withdraw its DVD proposal as a pre-condition to making an offer on Internet residuals. In fact, the AMPTP’s actions proved otherwise, as the AMPTP presented the WGA with a wholly new TV streaming residual proposal before the WGA withdrew its proposal to double DVD residuals.”

The back and forth, the accusations and counter-charges, all aired in public, only work to poison the atmosphere further. As I have reported, there is no likelihood of negotiations resuming any time soon between the writers and management. What will continue is the vitriol, recriminations and poison pen press releases.

For a business built on relationships, relations between management and the writers remain frozen in a very bad place. It’s going to be a long cold winter.