The Directors Guild of America’s National Board of Directors this weekend agreed to address a request from the entertainment studios and hold discussions with regards to entering into early contract negotiations. Secretary-Treasurer Gil Cates was appointed to lead the DGA Negotiating Committee. The directors’ current three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expires June 30, 2002.
The DGA’s National Board, meeting on Saturday, voted to authorize its Negotiating Chairman and National Executive Director to hold exploratory meetings with chief executives from the studios to determine the feasibility of early negotiations that could avoid costly production slowdowns that invariably occur in the months preceding formal contract negotiations.
“Our Guild is fortunate to have someone with Gil’s vision, leadership skills and experience agree to take on this challenge and serve as Chairman of our Negotiating Committee,” said DGA President Jack Shea. “As a former two-term DGA president, he successfully led the Guild through two of our toughest negotiations ever, including the only strike in DGA history.” That strike, in 1987, was short-lived and followed months of intense negotiations.
The request from the studios to begin the talks early cited the “many complex issues facing the bargaining parties which should be addressed sooner rather than later” to provide “stability and certainty...in the development, planning and production of motion pictures.”
“The DGA wants to avoid the production slowdown that engulfed Hollywood earlier this year,” said Cates, referring to the final-hour deals that were reached this Spring between the AMPTP and the entertainment industry’s two other primary guilds—the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild. “We think it is particularly important given the current events taking place throughout the country today to make every reasonable effort to reach an early and fair deal—for our members and our industry. To do this will take a commitment from the studios to address the issues the DGA will be placing on the table.”
Along with Shea, the letter was addressed to DGA National Executive Director Jay Roth, under whose leadership the Guild successfully negotiated new labor agreements in 1996 and 1999 that won important gains in the areas of economics and creative rights for its members. The letter requests a meeting “in the near future” to discuss the early negotiation proposal.
One of the industry’s most respected leaders, Cates is a distinguished director of feature films and television movies. He has produced a record 10 Academy Awards shows that have garnered 15 Emmy awards. An active member of the DGA’s National Board for more than two decades, Cates served as Guild president from 1983 to 1987. In 1989, he received the Guild’s Robert B. Aldrich Award for extraordinary service to the DGA membership and in 1991 the Guild’s Honorary Life Membership.
“I have always believed it is a great honor to serve the best interests of my fellow Guild members. It is a privilege for me to accept this new responsibility,” said Cates. “I will be joined by a strong membership committee and professional staff. Our goal will be to produce a contract that provides uninterrupted jobs for our members and gives them the economic gains for which they have worked so hard. The entertainment industry is a vital part of the Southern California economy, and we need to keep it healthy and working.”
Shea also announced that Vice Presidents Martha Coolidge and John Frankenheimer will co-chair the Creative Rights Committee, as they have in both the 1996 and 1999 contract negotiations.
The Board was formerly scheduled to meet in Los Angeles on September 15th but the meeting was postponed because of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. The Los Angeles and New York board members “met” via videoconference.
