David Letterman Looks to Break WGA Strike Deadlock

The first break in the standoff created by the striking union of entertainment writers, Writers’ Guild of America, may be just around the corner. David Letterman is currently in the middle of negotiating a deal with the union that would allow his late night show to go on air again from the beginning of January.

The deal, if it comes through, would allow Letterman to use material created by his writers even as the rest of the industry continues to reel under the strike. According to representatives from Letterman’s production company, Letterman might be able to arrive at an interim understanding with guild members as early as this week.

If Letterman is indeed able to ink a deal with the guild, it will give him a huge edge over rivals and colleagues on the late-night circuit. Another person already supposedly looking to work out some kind of an understanding is Jon Stewart of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. He was expected to start the process of working out a deal by Monday morning.

Even if Stewart is able to come to an understanding with guild members by Monday morning, Letterman still has a huge edge over him. Letterman has his own production company, Worldwide Pants Inc., which is not owned by any of the networks.

Talk of Letterman working out a deal surfaced in the industry at a critical time, when the WGA adopted a new line that had the possibility of throwing a gigantic spanner in the works when it came to the procedure that production companies of the various networks and also the studios were to follow while negotiating with it.

Representatives of the WGA said the organization was looking to fall back on a legality when it came to negotiations with the networks and studios. They said the WGA was looking to make use of a legal option that enabled it to insist that networks and studios carry out individual negotiations with it, something that the producers’ alliance has already turned down.

According to WGA insiders, the new line is aimed at taking apart at the seams the united façade that some of a members of the media conglomerate, a minority that included Sony, Time Warner, News Corporation, General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, CBS, and also Viacom have been presenting during the current face-off.

The contents of a letter that Writers Guild of America East and the Writers Guild of America sent to members Saturday were a clear indication of the WGA’s plan to use the legal option. It said, “Each signatory employer is required to bargain with us individually if we make a legal demand that it do so. We will make this demand on Monday.”

The producers’ alliance, the other party involved in the WGA standoff, has already made its feelings about the new situation clear. In an interview, J. Nicholas Counter III, the alliance’s president, called the new line nothing but the WGA ‘grasping for straws’.

According to Mr. Counter, his group was the one who would be carrying out all future negotiations with the WGA, and this was not dependent on whether the respective groups carried out individual negotiations or not. He said the alliance ‘represents all companies both individually and on a multiemployer basis.

The alliance is representative of close to 350 production companies. Overall, however, representatives from the bigger corporations within the alliance govern the tone and pace of negotiations with the WGA.

Even if a company were to deal individually with the WGA, it would still have the option of continuing negotiations with the guild through the alliance. Not just that, the company could even make use of a third party monitor from other companies assess there interactions.

None of the Hollywood unions have succeeded in enforcing individual bargaining in all these years. However, according to Anthony R. Segall, who is the general counsel for the West Coast guild, there have been numerous instances of contract agreements with different companies before the current standoff started.

Segall and Worldwide Pants Inc. representatives have both made it clear there was no understanding reached between the two sides as of Saturday regarding a compromise solution to tide over the current standoff.