Hollywood scribes, studios back in the ring
Carl DiOrio

LOS ANGELES—At 10 a.m. Monday morning, union scribes and studio suits will touch gloves and resume their sparring over terms of a new film and TV contract.
Industries scoring this latest round of negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers hope the parties keep things sporting and avoid the bloody spectacle of 17 previous bargaining sessions. But things will swing on two key questions:
* Will the parties pick up roughly where they left off November 4? That was their last bargaining session before the writers strike began November 5, and it featured a withdrawal of DVD demands by the guild as well as some give on new-media compensation by the studios.
* How flexible will the WGA or the AMPTP prove on matters important to each other and the possibility for compromise?
The guild and studios have implemented a press blackout on Monday’s session, which will take place in an undisclosed location.
A federal mediator who has joined the proceedings for the past few sessions surely had something to do with the press blackout. The move to a secret site for the talks seemed designed to discourage daily coverage by broadcast media, which had taken to parking its camera trucks outside WGA headquarters in the final days before the strike.
Meanwhile, guild members will continue picketing activities on both coasts into a fourth week of the strike.
The WGA West posted on its Web site that pickets should take up their usual sites at nine locations throughout Los Angeles today. The WGA East is planning a membership rally for Washington Square Park in New York on Tuesday.
WGA brass believes that its picketing, rallies and other public pressure have forced management back to the bargaining table. It also appeared that AMPTP might have been surprised by the wide early support for the strike among TV showrunners, the producers who oversee series’ day-to-day operations.