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Picketing writers say Leno violated strike rules by penning his own lines

TV movie writer Anna Sandor, lower left, and other striking writers march outside a scheduled appearance by US Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee on the Tonight Show at NBC studios in Burbank, California, on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

The striking writers union told TV talk show host Jay Leno, a union member, that he violated its rules by penning and delivering punch lines in his first Tonight Show monologue in two months on NBC on Wednesday.

NBC quickly fired back, alleging Leno was right and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) was wrong.

"The WGA agreement permits Jay Leno to write his own monologue for The Tonight Show," NBC said in a statement on Thursday. "The WGA is not permitted to implement rules that conflict with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the studios and the WGA."

The agreement between the guild and producers expired on Oct. 31 but its terms remain in effect, said Andrea Hartman, executive vice president and deputy general counsel for NBC Universal. She cited federal labor law.

According to the contract, "material written by the person who delivers it on the air" is exempted from the agreement. The exception applies to shows outside prime-time, which includes NBC's Tonight Show.

For its part, the union argues that it is on firm ground in the context of either its "strike rules" or the expired contract.

"Our position is that our strike rules don't conflict here and, because he's [Leno] always been employed as a writer" on the show, the contract exception doesn't apply to him, guild spokesman Neal Sacharow said.

Sacharow declined comment on whether the guild would move against Leno. But he said any violation of strike rules would be brought before a union compliance committee for evaluation and a recommendation for action.

That could mean a fine or loss of union membership.

The guild's scolding of Leno came despite his public support for the union, including delivering doughnuts to a picket line. Leno also paid his employees' salaries -- except for the writers -- while he was off the air, and Tonight Show writers were pointedly absent from a picket line outside his studio on Wednesday.

Leno is "busying himself with the show," his publicist, Dick Guttman, said on Thursday when asked if the comedian had any comment.

Meanwhile, viewers thirsting for laughs welcomed their favorites back in their first shows since the strike took them off the air on Nov. 5. Late-night leader Leno's Tonight Show on NBC was seen by 7.2 million viewers, while David Letterman had 5.5 million people watch the Late Show on CBS. For Letterman, the audience was 45 percent more than his pre-strike average this season; for Leno, it was a 43 percent bump and his biggest audience in two years, Nielsen Media Research said.
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