NYT: Writers Guild President Starts the Countdown Toward Contract’s End

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/movies/11guil.html

Writers Guild President Starts the Countdown Toward Contract’s End

By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: April 11, 2007

LOS ANGELES, April 10 — As his wedding neared, some 19 years ago, Patric Verrone, now president of the Writers Guild of America West, joined his bride-to-be in a ritual common to show business types. The couple formed a company, one with a clever name: Calloo Callay.

“It’s what you say when you slay the Jabberwock, which is what we were attempting to do in Hollywood,” said Mr. Verrone, referring to Lewis Carroll’s verse about a mythical monster.

Mr. Verrone will come face to face with the beast in its corporate form this July, as his union and its East Coast counterpart begin what are expected to be exceedingly difficult negotiations with the conglomerates that own the networks and studios. Whether the entertainment business continues to operate as usual over the next year will depend in no small part on how he handles the encounter.


Patric Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America West.


For all their complexity, Hollywood labor talks have often boiled down to issues of leadership. This time around, Mr. Verrone — a retro-styled 47-year-old who has a background in both comedy and the law, and a taste for crisp white shirts that seem more Benchley than Bochco — has helped set a tone of wariness, if not outright anxiety, with his insistence on big solutions.

“He’s an absolute straight-shooter; he’s unafraid,” said Alan Rosenberg, the Screen Actors Guild president, whose own union faces contract talks only months after the writers. “We’re traveling the same path at the same time, and I know there’s a great deal to be afraid of.”

Since assuming the Writers Guild presidency 18 months ago, Mr. Verrone has made clear to the industry that he means to reverse trends that have weakened its traditionally strong union structure. He has replaced key members of his union’s professional staff, allied with fellow guilds and laid groundwork for a series of labor-management talks as the writers’ contract nears an end in October, followed eight months later by the industry’s agreements with the Directors Guild of America and the much larger Actors Guild.

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