250 WGA members might lose health care

Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on January 30, 2008 - 11:49pm

General Film

As if the Writers Guild of America (WGA) members don’t already have enough boiling their blood, this smack-in-the-face news just came in from Variety:

Before the WGA went on strike, its leaders repeatedly assured members they would retain eligibility within the guild-industry health plan for the duration of the work stoppage.

But the assertion that “the clock will stop” — made on numerous occasions to members by WGA West president Patric Verrone and exec director David Young — turned out to be wrong.

About 250 WGA members will lose their eligibility April 1 because they did not meet the plan’s 12-month earnings threshold of $30,823 as of Dec. 31. That’s about 40% higher than the usual number who lose eligibility, and that figure will probably jump significantly in July — because of the loss of earnings during the strike.

Typically, about 5,500 WGA members are covered by the health plan.

The issue has been percolating among rank-and-file WGA members in recent days. Many members had presumed that if they were covered by the health plan at the start of the strike Nov. 5, they would retain their coverage through the strike.

According to several attendees at a WGA membership meeting on Nov. 1 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Verrone told the crowd of 3,000 members at one point “the clock will stop” on eligibility for the health plan. That pronouncement was greeted with enthusiasm.

In addition, WGA trustee John Auerbach had posted repeatedly on the members-only Writer Action website that members would retain their eligibility for the plan during the strike. He posted to that effect as recently as early January.

In recent weeks, however, WGA leaders have started admitting there’s been no change in the health plan’s eligibility rules. And the WGA West board voted last week to pay for a month of COBRA coverage for any member who has lost health-care coverage eligibility because of the strike.

“We hope that there will be an agreement before April 1,” WGA spokesman Neal Sacharow told Daily Variety on Wednesday. “The board made this decision to protect members from any possible effects of the strike.”More than one option(Co) Daily Variety
Filmography, Year, Role
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At a $1,000 monthly cost for the COBRA policy, the move by the board places the WGA on the hook for $250,000 if the strike lasts that long.

But Sacharow refused to respond to questions as to why Verrone had provided members with incorrect information about the health plan.

The plan is jointly overseen by 34 trustees — 17 reps each from the guild and the industry. The WGA trustees include David Young, VP David Weiss, negotiating committee chief John Bowman, negotiating committee members Neal Baer and Steven Schwartz and WGA execs Mona Mangan, Paul Nawrocki, Ann Widdifield and Countess Williams.

WGA plan administrator Terrence Young also refused to answer questions Wednesday about the dissemination of misinformation by WGA leaders. But informed sources said guild officials never officially asked the health plan to approve changing the eligibility rules because of the strike.

WGA members who contacted the health plan in recent months with questions about retaining eligibility during a strike were informed that no rule changes had taken place. But the plan and the guild have not issued any formal announcement about the plan since the strike began.

One WGA member said Verrone has responded to inquiries in recent weeks by asserting that guild leaders had been operating on the assumption that the health plan would allow members to retain eligibility during a strike, claiming this was done during the 1988 strike. However, in 1988, the plan merely granted members a three-month extension to earn eligibility after the five-month strike ended.

A recent email message from strike captains to members amplified the WGA West board’s plans, saying the board may continue the COBRA payments on a monthly basis if the strike continues. And it also said the final deal between the guild and the AMPTP could include a recommendation that extended coverage be provided for those impacted by the strike.

“As part of any future strike settlement, the parties may recommend to the trustees of the health fund that the eligibility rules be modified to address loss of coverage due to the strike,” the message said. “In 1988, the trustees agreed to provide extended coverage for some members whose ability to earn was significantly diminished during that strike. While we can make no promises — half of the health fund trustees are representatives of management — we can say that we will attempt to reach a similar understanding after the current strike.”

WGA nixes anti-Wall Street confab; sign of progress?

Submitted by HollywoodChicago.com on January 31, 2008 - 12:08am.

Also on the subject, this is also just in from Variety:

In a signal that informal talks to end the writers strike may be gaining momentum, the WGA has offered an olive branch to the congloms by abruptly canceling a Wall Street confab for CBS’ institutional investors.

The guild — now in its 87th day of striking — pulled the plug Wednesday without explanation on what would have been a presentation aimed at persuading investors to put pressure on CBS honcho Leslie Moonves to make a deal with the WGA.

Next Tuesday’s event at the Cornell Club in Gotham would have also been designed to persuade research analysts to lower their investment ratings on CBS stock. The get-together was billed as an hourlong event to present the WGA’s analysis of the strike’s impact on the congloms generally and CBS specifically, featuring speeches by WGA West president Patric Verrone, WGA East prexy Michael Winship, SAG president Alan Rosenberg and writers and actors from CBS programs.

Neither side had any comment Wednesday about the confab or the informal talks, which have entered their second week under a news blackout with the goal of setting the stage for the resumption of official negotiations.

But the WGA’s move to deep-six an event that could have angered the congloms will likely be interpreted by the town as a sign that the talks — despite their slow pace — are yielding some progress. WGA West exec director David Young noted in the invitation, sent out Sunday to research analysts, that most analysts view CBS as being “especially vulnerable” to the strike because of its concentration in network TV.

“An extended strike will affect the pilot season for fall television series, the customary upfront ad purchasing season in early May, the ability of networks to meet the required ratings performance for ad revenue already received, and important ancillary revenues on the sale of series to secondary markets,” Young said. “We will also discuss concerns regarding possible conflicts of interest in the governance of CBS given its relationship to Viacom and the different positioning of the two companies vis-a-vis digital media rights.”

CBS stock closed at $27.67 on Nov. 2, the last session before the strike started, and has declined 9% since then. It closed Wednesday at $25.03.

In another development Wednesday, the WGA inked its 14th interim deal by signing with year-old Overture Films on the heels of similar agreements signed last week with Lionsgate, Marvel and RKO. The interim deals let the companies hire writers under the terms and conditions offered by the WGA before formal negotiations with the AMPTP collapsed last month.

For the WGA, the deals are a way to gain leverage in persuading the congloms to resume formal talks.

Overture, backed by John Malone’s Liberty Media, launched operations in late 2006 headed by industry vets Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Its first feature, caper comedy “Mad Money,” opened earlier this month.

Rosett, whose title is chief operating officer, said in an interview that the interim agreement will allow Overture to continue begin moving forward on its 2009 slate. And he noted that as word got out Wednesday, the volume of inquiries accelerated.

“You could feel the momentum picking up this morning,” he added. “We feel like this is something that helps get us beyond being ‘in theory.’ We felt that we had a very reasonable conversation with WGA about what’s best for our company.”

Overture’s going into production Feb. 13 on “Humboldt Park,” which has a completed script. Upcoming releases include “Sleepwalking,” starring Charlize Theron, and Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor.”

The AMPTP dismissed the WGA’s interim deals, labeling them as “one-off agreements” that are meaningless because the companies signing them know they will not have to abide by their terms for very long, since they’ll be superseded by whatever final industrywide accords are reached.

The AMPTP also joined the brawl over interpreting terms of the DGA tentative deal, signed two weeks ago. A day after SAG expressed its deep misgivings about the terms of the directors’ pact — drawing a rebuke from the DGA — the AMPTP took SAG to task Wednesday over its characterization of the compensation for paid downloads.

SAG had claimed that the DGA’s doubling of the download residuals formulas — to 0.7% for TV and 0.65% in features — was actually an AMPTP rollback since the WGA, SAG and the DGA had filed grievances over the download rate lagging the pay TV rate of 1.2%.

But the AMPTP said SAG’s wrong, since none of the guilds ever pursued the grievances; instead, they opted to hold them open and address the issue at the bargaining table.

“The bottom line is clear: The 1.2% figure was never a benchmark of any kind,” the AMPTP said. “It was merely a demand that none of the guilds ever seriously pursued.”

The AMPTP companies have maintained that electronic sell-through is another form of homevideo rather than pay TV because the buyer retains a permanent copy.

“If the guilds believed that they had a strong case, they would have pursued their grievance claims; instead, they held them open, preferring to address the issue in negotiations,” the AMPTP said. “This is what the DGA has done.”