The Los Angeles city council approved a resolution Wednesday
urging both sides of the latest Hollywood labor dispute to return
to the bargaining table, in an effort to end the writers strike
that already had an economic impact on the city.
Los Angeles area economy could take a 380 million U.S. dollar
hit if the strike continues as long as the 1988 labor action, which
lasted about 22 weeks, an economist told the city council before it
passed the resolution.
"To reiterate, these losses are real losses. There are real
individuals who feel this pain and have difficulty because of it,"
said Jerry Nickelsburg with the UCLA Anderson Forecast.
However, Nickelsburg said the impact is still very modest in
terms of the overall Los Angeles economy. "380 million dollars
equal one-tenth of 1 percent of the Los Angeles economy," he
said.
Jack Kyser, an economist with the Los Angeles County Economic
Development Corp., said the pain of the Writers Guild of America
strike, which is now in its 7th week, is "growing each day."
"For the city of Los Angeles, you have significant risk because
of the industry's concentration in and around the community of
Hollywood," Kyser said.
The Motion Picture Association of America, the Hollywood trade
association representing major movie studios, submitted a statement
to the city council, saying "the economic consequences of the
strike cannot be measured solely by wages."
Negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the
writers' union, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television
Producers (AMPTP), which represents film studios and TV networks,
have stalled and no further talks are scheduled.
The writers' primary issue in the labor dispute is pay for
material that is distributed on-line or through other new media
outlets. Talks broke off last week over the guild's demand for
extending its jurisdiction over so-called unscripted series and
animated programs.
WGA chief negotiator John Bowman told reporters Wednesday that
the union is talking deals with several small independent producers
so that at least some of its members could return to work soon.
Earlier reports have said that the writers union was trying to
go around the AMPTP and negotiate individually with the studios to
take advantage of the cracks between them.
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(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2007)