LOS ANGELES (July 24) - Joined by dozens of supporters, the 12 writer-producers on the hit reality series "America's Next Top Model" have gone on strike to protest the refusal by the show's executive producer to let them unionize.
The staffers on the modeling competition hosted and executive produced by Tyra Banks marched Friday morning in front of the show's production offices in West Los Angeles.
They wore red T-shirts with the Writers Guild of America logo and carried signs with such slogans as "Top Model means top $. Top Model writers don't have health care," "Reality needs a rewrite" and "Tyra is union. Why not me?"
At a rally on the picket line, the show's writers received support from various union officials.
"Top Model" staff writer Daniel Blau read a joint statement by the show's writers.
"There is a double standard being applied as our peers in dramatic television work under the protections of a WGA contract," the statement read. "We should too."
The "Top Model" staffers are seeking writing credits (they're currently credited as show producers), better pay, health insurance, residuals and pension benefits.
"We're not asking for anything unreasonable," said writer Clint Catalyst, who has been with the show for the past four cycles.
The "Top Model" staffers accused the show's executive producers of "double standard" after the editors on the show were allowed to join the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees last year.
The writers, meanwhile, are being steered by executive producer Ken Mok to the National Labor Relations Board.
"The process permits an impartial government agency, the National Labor Relations Board, to conduct a secret-ballot election so that all affected employees have an individual right to express their preference as to whether or not they want to elect a union," Mok said in a statement issued Thursday. He declined further comment Friday.
"Top Model" staffers argue that a NLRB procedure would take months, and by the time it's completed, the two upcoming cycles of "Top Model" would be in the can and the current staff writers could be let go.
"It's a deliberate stall tactic," Catalyst said. "It's unfortunate because we love the show."
The stakes are high for everybody involved in the "Top Model," strike which comes with only one episode of the upcoming seventh cycle of the show completed. A prolonged work stoppage would jeopardize the launch plans for fledging CW network, which has slated the two-hour season premiere of "Top Model" as its maiden broadcast Sept. 20.
The CW is not working on contingency plans yet.
"We expect these issues to be resolved in the near future, and the show remains on track for its Sept. 20 launch on the CW," a network spokesman said Friday. The impasse represents the biggest public fight to emerge since the WGA began a major push last year to organize writers and producers who work on unscripted primetime television series. The guild maintains that it has the right to represent the scribes and producers who serve in the function of writers by conceiving situations and determining what material is used on shows that often draw from hours of raw footage of their subjects.
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2006-07-24 06:52:47
