Strike Watch; The Fencing Continues

The significance of the latest gesture by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, in the form of an announcement by president J. Nicholas Counter, appears to be very much in the eyes of the beholder. On the surface, the producers made a large concession by sweeping one of their original demands off the table (a provision that projects would have to recoup certain production costs before residual payments to writers could kick in). At the same time, the AMPTP reiterated that they have no intention of acceding to the Writers' Guild demands to double DVD residual payments.

The now-junked recoupment proposal had been sufficiently enraging to the writers that some observers had seen it as a loss leader--something so absurd (because it was based on the idea that studios and networks would ever give accurate reports of their profits) that it would be a handy plank to remove when a concession was needed. With that goad gone, WGA president Patric Verrone may find it harder to get an impressive tally in the strike vote that's to be decided by this week's voting deadline of Thursday.

Verrone may not have made many converts among the struggling class of writers with his recently-issued set of hard-line strike rules that would extend the guild's reach into certain spheres, like animation and new media (notably the Internet and cell phones) where it hasn't yet made serious organizing inroads and holds little clout.

The change in the AMPTP's agenda pushed the needle back from the strike fervor that had arisen among the writers, a fervor that might have led to a November 1st job action that cooler heads seem to feel would be premature. (The Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild aren't due to renew their contract until mid-summer, and the smart money originally forecast that the writers would toss in with them and keep individual incomes going until then.)

Screenwriter Craig Mazin, who runs the Artful Writer blog with Ted Elliott, had issued a renewed, stern condemnation of the producers' stance on Sunday before the concession:

Forget jurisdiction over animation, DVD residuals, creative rights (sadly), and everything else that the WGA wants to argue about. The only one that matters right now is finding good reuse formulae for the Internet. **

Naturally, the AMPTP proposal for the Internet stinks. It's horrid.

Mazin jokingly (perhaps) hinted on Tuesday that his influence may have swayed the producers--whether or not that's true, his blog will be studied closely in the coming days as the writers take their own temperature on where negotiations stand. He's still keeping his distance from the guild eladership:

Well done, AMPTP...Now, I assume the rest of their odious proposals are still out there, but how can anyone not see this as at least the semblance of an olive branch?

They've made a move in the right direction....

Time to step up, WGA. You got the other side to blink. Reward that. Get past the bluster, and get down to business. There are tens of thousands of working people hoping that a deal can be found.

The least we can do is try and find a way to deal.

The back-and-forth will no doubt continue in earnest.