WGA Files Labor Complaint Against AMPTP

LOS ANGELES, December 14: The Writers Guild of America (WGA)
has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board against the Alliance
of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for “its refusal to bargain
in good faith,” while the Directors Guild has announced that it is set to begin
its new contract negotiations in January.

The labor charges were filed by the WGA yesterday. The
organization maintains: “It is a clear violation of federal law for the AMPTP
to issue an ultimatum and break off negotiations if we fail to cave to their
illegal demands.”

The WGA statement continued: “We are in the midst of the
holiday season, with thousands of our members and the membership of other
unions out of work. It is the height of irresponsibility and intransigence for
the AMPTP to refuse to negotiate a fair agreement with the WGA. We reiterate
our demand that the AMPTP immediately return to the negotiations, rather than
going on vacation, so that this town can be put back to work.”

In response, the AMPTP issued a statement noting: “The WGA’s
filing of a complaint with the NLRB reminds us of the old lawyers’ adage: When
the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side,
argue the law. And when you don’t have either the law or the facts on your
side, you pound the table. The WGA has now been reduced to pounding the table,
and this baseless, desperate NLRB complaint is just the latest indication that
the WGA’s negotiating strategy has achieved nothing for working writers.”

Meanwhile, the AMPTP is gearing up for a new set of
negotiations, this time with the Directors Guild of America (DGA). The
president of the DGA, Michael
Apted, and the negotiations chair, Gil Cates, said in a statement that they
had initially held off on starting negotiations “out of respect for our sister
guild.”

The statement went on to say that DGA is “deeply
disappointed by the breakdown of talks between the WGA and the AMPTP with no
end to the strike in sight,” calling the current situation “dire.”

Apted and Cates continued: “The WGA-AMPTP impasse has cost
the jobs of tens of thousands of entertainment-industry workers, including many
of our own members, and more lose their jobs every day the strike continues.
With so much at stake and no end to the standoff in sight, we can no longer
abdicate our responsibility to our own members. Because we want to give the WGA
and the AMPTP more time to return to the negotiating table to conclude an
agreement, the DGA will not schedule our negotiations to begin until after the
New Year, and then, only if an appropriate basis for negotiations can be
established. If that’s the case, then the DGA will commence formal talks in the
hope that a fresh perspective and the additional pressure we can bring to bear
will help force the AMPTP to settle the issues before us in a fair and
reasonable manner.”

The AMPTP has said that it is looking forward to negotiating
with the DGA “in an atmosphere of professionalism and respect. But no one
should be under any illusions: this will still be an extremely difficult
process. All of us—producers, directors, writers and everyone working in
the entertainment business—need to get this right, because in the rapidly
evolving new media marketplace, there is little margin for error. We must work
in partnership to create a modern economic system that fairly shares the
benefits of progress while providing opportunity for the kind of innovation and
flexibility we all need to succeed.”

—By Mansha Daswani