Unnerved by mounting anger within the unions representing actors and writers, Hollywood studios are already girding for potential strikes two years before the first contract even expires.
Relations have become so frayed in the last two months with the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America, West, that studios recently began drafting strike contingency plans that could be finalized by early next year.
"There is growing concern over the strident positions enunciated by the present leadership of the two guilds," said J. Nicholas Counter, who speaks for the major studios and is their chief negotiator. "The truth is we have no choice but to prepare for the worst possible scenario in the next round of bargaining."
Studios usually keep a lid on such tough talk this far in advance for fear of fueling rancor and dissent. If they launch contingency plans at all -- accelerating production, stockpiling scripts and shooting films outside the U.S. -- they typically wait to within a year of the time contracts run out.
But developments in September and October changed that. Both guilds elected slates that vowed to take a more confrontational stance with studios in trying to get them to budge on such long-festering issues as sharing a bigger slice of their lucrative DVD business. Both unions then jarred Hollywood by abruptly firing their top negotiators, both of whom were criticized for being too accommodating.
Actor Alan Rosenberg, who represents 120,000 SAG members as their new president, dismisses strike talk as scare mongering but warned that the union wouldn't be intimidated.
"We're going to stand up for our members and get our fair share, something we haven't done in a long time," he said.
Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild, West, which represents 9,500 TV and film scribes, said that although writers don't want a strike, the studios shouldn't underestimate their resolve to apply pressure through a walkout or other means.
"If they are preparing for the worst, I'm not sure they know what the worst is," he said.
The current studio deal with writers isn't up until November 2007; the actors' contract expires in June 2008.
Nonetheless, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit group that tracks the local economy, is already taking the threat seriously. It is preparing a study that will heavily focus on the potential effect of any strike on the Southern California entertainment industry, which employs more than 250,000 people.
