Writers Guild leaders call for end to Hollywood strike

Union leaders for striking Hollywood screenwriters urged their members Saturday to end the three-month walkout and support adealreached with film and television studios.

Many of the 10,500 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA)affected by the strike attended meetings Saturday night in New York and Los Angeles, where the mood was upbeat.

"Continuing the strike now will not bring sufficient gains to outweigh the potential risks the time has come to accept this contract and settle the strike," guild leaders Patric Verrone and Michael Winship said in an e-mailed message to members.

Former Walt Disney Co. chief Michael Eisner told a CNBC program that the agreement was reached Feb. 1. The tentative deal capped more than two weeks of intense but low-key negotiations following months of on-and-off bargaining, impasse and rancor between the two sides.

"They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal," Eisner said. The writers "would be insane if they turned it down," he added.

"We're optimistic. We really want to get back to work," said Jon Robin Baitz, a New York playwright and creator of the ABC show Brothers & Sisters, as he left the members' briefing in Manhattan.

"There's a tremendous positive sense that we've really accomplished something," added writer John Simmons. "I don't think we could have expected anything better."

The governing boards of the union's East and West Coast branches were expected to formally endorse the pact Sunday. They could also vote then to order striking writers back to work while the deal is submitted for ratification by the rank-and-file.

The guild posted an outline of the tentative pacton its website Saturday. The new deal:

• Provides union jurisdiction over projects created for the internet based on
  certain guidelines.
• Sets compensation for streamed, ad-supported programs and increases residuals for downloaded movies and TV programs.
• Gives compensation for ad-supported streaming but only after a window of
  between 17 to 24 days deemed "promotional" by the studios.
• Provides writers witha maximum $1,200 USflat fee for streamed programs in the deal's first two years, and then a percentage of a distributor's gross in year three.
  

"Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success," Verrone and Winship said in their e-mail message.

"It's a mixed deal but far better than the writers would have been able to get three months ago. The strike was a qualified success," said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorneyand a former associate counsel for the writers guild.

The Saturday meetings were held to give the WGA executive an indication whether their members would ratify the deal, thereby allowing them to lift the strike order to allowscreenwriters to go back to work perhaps as early as Monday.

The move would save the Academy Awards on Feb. 24th, which the writers had said theywould picket and sympathetic actors have stated they would not attend.The Grammys, which take placeSunday, worked out an interim deal to avoid pickets.

The strike has reportedly cost the Los Angeles economy $1 billion US.

The WGA got back to the table soon after the directors union hammered out a deal with the studios in January. Directors won some concessions on internet payments, a key issue for the writers.

Even if the screenwritershead back to work next week, it could take awhile for shows to get new episodes.A script for a one-hour show takes about three weeks to write and about 40 days to produce.