Sides talking but writers still walking

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Day Two of a planned three-day stretch of double-secret contract talks between the WGA and studio reps seemed to go well enough Tuesday, with parties yakking all day and agreeing to do it again in the morning.

But Wednesday will be the real test of whether the parties are determined to find a way to end the 3 1/2-week writers' strike. For one thing, industryites will watching to see if the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers schedule any further negotiating sessions.

Wednesday's session is expected to start at 10 a.m. PST, again at an undisclosed location. The parties' recently instituted media blackout has prevented many details of the week's progress from getting out, but it appeared there was no major bombshell among any of the contract proposals discussed Tuesday.

The latest session marked the 19th day of talks since the Writers Guild of America and AMPTP launched their film and TV contract negotiations on July 16. The writers went on strike November 5, five days after the expiration of their three-year pact and one day after the last bargaining session before this week.

MANHATTAN RALLY

Picketing continued at sites throughout Los Angeles on Tuesday. In New York, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was among politicians and others showing up to support a "solidarity rally" that the WGA East staged in Washington Square Park.

Guild organizers estimated the rally crowd at almost 1,000, with U.S. Reps. Anthony Weiner and Jerry Nadler and Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer among those on hand. Screen Actors Guild members Tim Robbins, Edie Falco, Danny Glover, Joe Pantoliano and other union actors also voiced support for the WGA.

Edwards, who previously appeared at a WGA picket line in Los Angeles, expressed his support for the WGA's strike efforts. "We're in this thing together," he told the rally crowd. "The truth is, it's crucial for the future of America."

Edwards is among political figures recently bowing out of scheduled talk show appearances in support of the strike. Like the other Democratic presidential front-runners, Edwards has vowed to boycott a candidates debate on December 10 if a potential strike by CBS newswriters goes forward.

"I'm proud of all your brothers and sisters being with you in this absolutely important cause, because what we have to do together is ... show strength," Edwards said. "We have to show that working people in this country actually deserve a chance. We have to show that we're going to have economic fairness and economic justice in America again."

Robbins told the rally crowd the WGA's fight is essentially a middle-class struggle.

"This is not a strike of millionaire writers," Robbins said. "This is a strike of middle-class writers trying to make this month's rent."

NATIONAL SCOPE

WGAE spokeswoman Sherry Goldman said the rally turnout showed that the strike is a national issue that brings together people bonded by labor. "It's not our fight," she said. "It's everybody's fight."

Dan Hughes, a student specializing in labor law at nearby New York University Law School, said he saw the WGA's public fight with Hollywood studios as a rallying cry for the labor movement in general.

"The press is good for the strike and good for the labor movement," Hughes said. "Next time, it might not be the Hollywood writers that are on strike."

SAG member Michael Jay Kaplan said he was there because "writers are artists (and) we've got to stick together."

Said SAG member Debra Robinson: "I think the strike is going to end soon. The producers know that the writers deserve what they're asking for."

Back in Los Angeles, where actors and others have helped stage almost daily photo opportunities for the press, Tuesday's activities included perhaps the zaniest of any such stunts to date.

Surrounded by picketers bearing signs inscribed with messages such as "We Eat Scabs," a large group of horror writers chanted, "Out, demons, out!" as they performed an "exorcism" outside of the Warner Bros. studio gates in Burbank. Some of the writers dressed in clerical garb.

Separately Tuesday, though the WGA didn't put out any statement on the contract talks, the guild did address the recent news that Carson Daly plans to resume the late-night talk show duties he had suspended in support of the strike.

"We're disappointed at Carson Daly's decision to return to work," the WGA West said. "Mr. Daly is not a writer and not a member of the WGA, unlike other late-night hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel, who have all resisted network pressure and honored our writers' picket lines.

"We're especially appalled at Mr. Daly's call for non-guild writers to provide him with jokes. We hope he'll change his mind and follow the lead of the other late-night hosts."

The latter criticism referred to a personal e-mail from Daly to friends and family that was leaked online Tuesday.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter