By John Horn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers and Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers|February 10, 2008
The Writers Guild of America leadership recommended Saturday that striking writers approve a contract offer from television networks and movie studios, signaling a likely -- but not immediate -- resolution to the crippling labor impasse.
The tentative pact -- which guild members greeted enthusiastically but hardly exuberantly -- still requires a ratification vote to end the 14-week strike. The guild had considered allowing its 10,000 members to return to work Monday, but decided to give writers a chance to consider the contract.
The guild expects the strike votes to be counted -- and writers to be back at their keyboards -- as early as Wednesday. If approved, the contract would not take effect for about two weeks.
Until the strike is lifted, thousands of workers in businesses as varied as catering, lighting and security will remain furloughed, and the production of new television episodes will not resume right away. The fate of the Feb. 24 Academy Awards remains in limbo, as show organizers have said they need at least two weeks of writing to prepare the ceremony and have not yet been granted a waiver from the guild that would permit such work.
"We have a deal," Patric Verrone, president of the guild's West Coast branch, told thousands of cheering out-of-work writers in a special meeting Saturday at the Shrine Auditorium. "More importantly, you have a deal."
Verrone said the final details of the deal between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were resolved at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, and the guild convened meetings of its members on both coasts later that day to walk them through the terms.
While the proposed deal did not deliver any landmark gains for the writers, it did not include any of the rollbacks proffered by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Guild leaders -- who were welcomed at the Shrine with several sustained standing ovations -- said that it was the best agreement they could obtain, and that it gave writers new compensation formulas for work created for, streamed and rebroadcast on the Internet.
"It is the best deal the guild has bargained for in 30 years. Admittedly, the contract has some holes," Verrone said. The studios declined to comment.
"I think we came away with a good deal," Michael Winship, president of the guild's East Coast branch, said at the New York meeting. "I hope the membership endorses it."
