Strikes

Following is a chronology of events surrounding the 150-day Writers Guild strike: Dec. 16, 1987. Guild and producers exchange proposals. Writers want hike in foreign residuals and expanded creative rights, including consultation on the choice of actors and director for some movies and TV programs. Producers want a softened, percentage-based formula for one-hour TV residuals and cost cuts in other areas. Jan. 12, 1988. Negotiations begin. Feb. 29. Contract expires, but talks continue. March 1.

For the sixth time in 21 years, major league umpires are off the job, their action Saturday called a strike by baseball's owners and a lockout by the Major League Umpires Assn. At issue is their contract, which ran out Dec. 31. Negotiations have been ongoing but apparently are stalled over an issue of salary. Association President Richie Phillips said that $750,000 per year over a four-year contract is at stake. Management negotiator Robert Kheel said the amount was twice that.

Business travelers could find themselves in quite a predicament when checking into hotels this summer. Hotel workers' labor contracts have lapsed or will lapse this year in seven major North American cities, and the threat of a major strike looms large. The decision to cross a picket line can be troubling even for someone who does not support a union's position, and the possibility of hotel services being reduced can be especially problematic for business travelers.

A potentially crippling strike against United Parcel Service of America Inc., which could have severely disrupted package deliveries nationwide, was postponed late Thursday. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, which represents more than 185,000 employees at the nation's largest shipping company, called off a threatened midnight EDT walkout "until further notice" as talks continued under the guidance of a federal mediator.

WHEN NBC's Golden Globes telecast devolved into a fiasco earlier this month, with ratings skidding more than 70%, it seemed to hammer home the conventional wisdom about the writers strike. The strike by the Writers Guild of America, you'll recall, was supposed to be a disaster for TV ratings. Once they realized their favorite shows were no longer airing original episodes, angry and bereft viewers would go berserk, smash their flat-screens and spend all their newfound free time on Facebook.com.

Thousands of workers went on strike at Virginia's Newport News Shipbuilding. "We haven't heard a word" from shipyard management, Arnold Outlaw, president of Local 8888 of the United Steelworkers of America, said before workers struck. The union, which represents many of the yard's 9,200 hourly workers, had said it would strike over what it says are insufficient raises in a proposed new contract.

A union representing 570 space shuttle program workers at the Kennedy Space Center voted to strike less than a week before the planned launch of the shuttle Atlantis. The International Assn. of Machinist and Aerospace Workers, which represents the United Space Alliance employees, rejected the company's contract offer, Florida Today reported. United Space Alliance spokeswoman Tracy Yates said the union might strike as early as June 10, two days after NASA plans to launch Atlantis.

Union leaders called off an 18-day general strike after completing an agreement with the government to appoint a consensus prime minister and reduce the prices of fuel and rice. The strike, which has left at least 59 people dead and brought this West African nation to an economic standstill, was one of the biggest challenges yet to President Lansana Conte's government.

Administrators started returning to the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the nation's largest, two days after a police raid ended a nine-month occupation by striking students. The federal attorney general's office announced that 579 of the adults arrested Sunday had been freed, though some might face other charges. Seventy-seven minors were turned over to the juvenile court system.

Representatives of the advertising industry and actors will continue negotiating next week as efforts stepped up to end the 20-week strike by actors. Both sides plan to bring their full negotiating committees to New York for the sessions, yet another sign that progress is being made toward ending the dispute.