Striking writers threaten to disrupt Golden Globes
Peter David

LOS ANGELES—Striking members of the Writers Guild of America plan to picket the Golden Globes awards ceremony scheduled for January 13, the guild announced Wednesday. The west coast division of the WGA issued a statement announcing that the organizer of the awards ceremony, Dick Clark Productions, was one of the companies from which writers went on strike and therefore members would picket the awards ceremony.
“Dick Clark Productions is a struck company. As previously announced, the Writers Guild will be picketing the Golden Globe Awards,” it said in a statement. “We are engaged in a crucial struggle that will protect our income and intellectual property rights for generations to come. We will continue to do everything in our power to bring industry negotiations to a fair conclusion,” it said.
“In the meantime, we are grateful for the ongoing support of the Hollywood talent community.” Hollywood screenwriters have been on strike since November 5 after the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed to agree terms for a new contract that expired in October. Negotiations foundered over the writers’ demands for an increased share of profits from Internet and new media sales.
The eight-week strike has forced the suspension of numerous television series as well as the postponement of work on several Hollywood films. The producers of the Golden Globes said they were seeking an interim deal with the guild and said the WGA “could be accused of playing favourites if it fails to grant a waiver to the Globes since it has already done so for the SAG Awards and the Sprit Awards,” Variety magazine’s web site said.
“Much like the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Film Independent’s Spirit Awards, we want to enter into an agreement with the WGA that will allow the entertainment industry to celebrate the outstanding work of creative individuals in addition to millions of fans nationwide,” said Jorge Camara, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
“It is only fair that we be afforded the same opportunity as these other awards shows,” he said. Striking writers were also to protest Wednesday outside the studios where “The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno,” “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” television shows are filmed, because the shows are returning to air without their writing staffs.
Two other late night shows — “Late Show with David Letterman” and “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” — are also returning to air but after striking a deal with CBS’s production company Worldwide Pants to keep their writers on board. Both O’Brien and Leno said last month this month they would risk crossing picket lines from January 2 in order to safeguard the jobs of staff who were not part of the dispute between the WGA and producers.
The popular chat shows went into shutdown soon after the writers strike began. The WGA accused network NBC of ordering Leno and O’Brien’s decision to return to TV screens and called for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to return to the negotiating table. WGA East President Michael Winship wrote in a letter to members on Tuesday that the picket the talk shows was not a criticism of the hosts but of the networks and studios that are resuming without their writers.
“Leno, O’Brien and Kimmel are all members of the Guild and have been and continue to be extremely supportive of our strike and their writing staffs. For that we truly are grateful,” Winship wrote. “Nonetheless, they are coming back without writers and without a new Guild contract, forced back on the air by companies that refuse to sit at the table and bargain with us. We cannot let that pass.” Leno’s Wednesday night show was to feature Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, while Hillary Clinton and comedian Robin Williams were set to appear on Letterman.
Earlier the writers called on Huckabee to cancel his planned appearance on “The Tonight Show.” “The Writers Guild thanks the former governor (Huckabee) for his strong statement of support for striking writers and hopes that he will not cross the picket lines at NBC,” the union said in a statement. Huckabee, whose appearance on the live show comes on the eve of the first state contest for the presidential nomination in Iowa, issued a statement just ahead of the show saying he supported the writers’ cause.
Huckabee “would only agree to join Jay, an active member of the Writers Guild, for the taping after he was assured that no replacement writers were being used in the show’s production,” his campaign said in a statement.
“Governor Huckabee believes that the writers deserve to be fairly compensated for the sale of their work”.