The Devil's in the Details

The other shoe has dropped. The DGA concluded their deal with the AMPTP. The congloms will spin their settlement with the DGA as proof that they are willing to close a deal quickly when their negotiating partners are reasonable business people. But we know that's just their high-priced PR consultants speaking. They didn't work out a deal with the WGA because they weren't willing to treat our negotiation seriously. That's all changed now.

The Guild leadership hasn't responded to the DGA deal, because the details of the agreement haven't yet been analyzed, so we'll have to wait before we really know how good or how bad the deal actually is. Regardless, the AMPTP now has to turn its attention to the WGA. They've avoided talking with the Guild in any meaningful way for two months. Now, they have no choice. Ending the strike means addressing our issues.

For the membership this is a crucial moment. Over the past few weeks, the pressures have been building precipitously. The strike has created economic and personal havoc for everyone in the Hollywood community, with terrible repercussions for the entire region. We all want this suffering to end. Within our ranks there are differing opinions about objectives and tactics. Emotions have been churned up.

What's needed now is clear-headed, strategic thinking. We've always known that we are one Guild among many and that, unlike other American corporations, the Hollywood congloms get to speak with one voice, using their superior resources to obstruct our objectives. Structurally, that puts us at an incredible disadvantage. What if all the Hollywood unions were, like the United Auto Workers, negotiating with one voice, picking off the studios, one at a time? What kind of deal would we have then?

In the next stage of the strike, the internal pressures on the membership will be severe. There will be some among us who will say, "Just settle! Take what the directors got and let us get back to work!" Others will go in the opposite direction and reject the DGA deal out of hand.

To engage the corporations, we have to be as strategic and clear-headed as they are. We shouldn't over-estimate our position any more than we should feel helpless. Notwithstanding the contentiousness of some, the membership is still unified and focused on the objectives of the strike. Walking on the picket line last week, there wasn't any question that writers feel a stronger sense of community and purpose than ever before in the history of the Guild. We have to rely on that strength to get us through the last part of the process. We have to remain unified and resolute, no matter what.

Hard Ball and the Award Shows

I miss the Golden Globes. The fans miss seeing their favorite stars win awards for their favorite movies and tv shows. The Writers' Guild Awards have also been downgraded to a news event. All the writers who were nominated deserve their moment in the spotlight. And the Academy Awards... That's threatened too. Added to all the economic difficulties created by the strike, why not just let the awards be a bright spot and let us enjoy all of their pomp and circumstance?

Because we have to play hard ball. We have to do that because the corporations are difficult employers. But more importantly, we have to play a tough-minded game because our industry suffers from a structural imbalance.

In most industries, labor gets to negotiate with a single voice. The individual corporations aren't allowed to collude. In the entertainment business, the opposite is true. The studios speak as one, while the directors, actors, writers, teamsters, and craft unions have been segregated into competing entities.

What's more, the contracts for the different unions don't come up for renewal at the same time. The media congloms won't allow their workers that kind of power. If writers are on strike, everyone else can keep working so the studios can continue on with their businesses, albeit with inconveniences.

Imagine what would happen if all the contracts came up at the same time. Perhaps then we'd have a 7 hour strike the way the auto industry did last year.

But back to reality.

In Hollywood, labor doesn't have that kind of structural power, and the calendar is our enemy. Which brings me back to the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Nobody wants to take the award shows off the air. Just as nobody wants to make life more difficult for the talk show hosts. For that matter, nobody wants to create economic hardship by striking. But if the corporations propose an unreasonable deal and they won't negotiate with any sincerity, there are only two choices: accept what they offer or take actions that cause them economic pain. That's all they understand, the bottom line.

If we don't like the deal they're offering, we have to play hard ball. The challenge is to do so in a way that is in keeping with our values and keeps public opinion on our side. If we won't allow waivers for these shows, we have to explain why. We can never lose sight of the public's strong support for the strike. We can't be indifferent to the consequences of our struggle. We can't be emotional or capricious. We need to make well-calculated tactical moves. We have to play smart hard ball.

Letterman Clip: "AMPTP: Cowards, Cutthroats and Weasels"

Enjoy.

The Shape of Things to Come: WGA, AMPTP, and the DGA

The trades would have us believe that the AMPTP will start negotiations with the DGA as soon as next week, if the AMPTP satisfies "the DGA's condition that it can establish 'an apropriate basis for negotiations'."

Why sit down with the DGA and not the WGA? Only the AMPTP knows the answer to that question, but for months, Nicholas Counter has said very publicly that he preferred to negotiate with the DGA. The AMPTP press releases blamed that on the writers, but the PR spin notwithstanding, the truth was pretty obvious. The AMPTP stonewalled our leadership because they wanted to wait for the DGA.

If the DGA does start negotations with the congloms next week, does that mean the WGA negotiations committee will become irrelevant, standing on the sidelines, reduced to being helpless observers? Certainly that's what the AMPTP would like us to think. But we know that isn't the truth. We know that our leadership is working behind the scenes, putting pressure on the congloms politically and economically. We know that our picketing and fan support has increased the public's awareness of our issues. We know too that an outreach effort to the individual companies was started when the AMPTP walked away from the table. The deal with World Wide Pants was the tangible result of that effort.

There will be even more opportunities to break through and settle the strike. The WGA leadership will continue to talk with companies like World Wide Pants that see the advantage to concluding an agreement with us now, rather than waiting for the inevitable conclusion of the strike.

So what about our sister guild, the DGA? If they begin negotiations with the AMPTP, let's hope their issues are the same as ours. Of course there will be differences as each guild's leadership pursues what's best for their members. But let's hope that they will succeed in pushing open the door to the internet and stopping, once and for all, the ridiculous proposals from the congloms that have come our way.

From the beginning of the strike, the WGA leadership knew that our contract negotiation was the first of many battles with the AMPTP for the future of all of Hollywood's unions. If the DGA begins their talks with the congloms, then we'll have another ally in that struggle.

Since the AMPTP has been so eager to sit down with the DGA, let's hope they conclude their discussions quickly so they'll come back to us.

The strike isn't over until we get a fair and equitable contract.

Taking the Struggle to the AMPTP, the "Scene of the Crime"

On Tuesday, specially trained picketers, members of the Criminal Writing Division of the WGA spread across Hollywood, marking each studio as a "crime scene" with yellow tape. Photographs were taken to document the event. A sister group gathered in Foley Square in Manhattan.

Sponsored by Rene Balcer, Bill Fordes, David Slack, Kit Boss, Mark Goffman, and Lynne Litt, a three-count Bill of Indictment was filed by writers from over 35 crime and police television series, charging the AMPTP with, in part:

"Conspiracy to steal the Internet and all revenues therefrom and deprive by fraud, trick, and deceit entertainment industry workers of their financial future and well-being, and with conspiracy to conduct meaningless negotiations with depraved indifference to the truth and with malice and mendacity aforethought."

Luminaries from the WGA and SAG joined in the rallies, shining a bright light on the "crimes" of the AMPTP.

In New York Gina Gianfriddo, Linus Roche, and Jeremy Sisto along with dozens of others braved the cold to state their case.

More than 500 picketers filled the sidewalk in front of AMPTP Headquarters in Encino.

Marg Helgenberger read the indictment. The casts of CSI, Lost, Num3ers, The Unit, Dexter, The Shield, Law and Order, Bones, Reno 911, and The Sarah Silverman Program were represented by, among others, Harold Perrineau, Gary Dourdan, Regina Taylor, Robert Patrick, C.S. Lee, Alana de la Garza, Benito Martinez, Cathy Cahlin Ryan, David Rees Snell, David Marciano, Rob Morrow, Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Kerri Kenney, and Brian Posehn.

Rene Balcer spoke to the heart of the event when he said:

"As crime writers, we navigate a morally ambiguous world but we do so without ever losing sight of the moral center. We know what's right. Through our characters of working-class cops and private detectives, lowly-paid lawyers and prosecutors, we speak truth to power.

If we know anything at all, we know bad behavior when we see it. And we’ve seen plenty of it from the AMPTP in the last six weeks. We're in a war on the middle class waged by multinational conglomerates. We're witnessing an assault on fairness, on a basic tenet of American enterprise - that if you create something, you should share in its success. We went on strike in defense of that principle. And it's for that principle that we remain on strike."

After the speeches were made, the AMPTP was invited to come outside and engage in a dialogue. But the AMPTP was nowhere in sight. They weren't at the City Council Meeting the next day either. Maybe everyone had left for an early vacation.

Who knows?

If the AMPTP reps were looking out their windows on Tuesday, they saw that the picketers were unified, vocal, and focused.

They had heard the chants before. "We're at the table, where are you?"

They heard it again on Tuesday. "2-4-6-8, Counter won't negotiate!"

They'll keep hearing it. "Come back to table. Give us a fair deal."

The strike isn't going away because the congloms want it to. The strike will stop when the AMPTP comes back to the table and discusses the issues, fairly and honestly.

This report was filed with the greatly appreciated assistance of David Slack, Lynne Litt, Chad Daniel, Bill Fordes, Kit Boss, and Rene Balcer.