The Worst And The Dimmest

It was inevitable. Fresh off of trying to bust the Writer's Guild union, Chris Lehane is moving on from that "success" to where he's always wanted to be - safe in the arms of his Republican pals.

With no end in sight to the state's flurry of ballot initiatives and the state likely to hold a special election this year, top Republican adviser Steve Schmidt and Democratic strategist Chris Lehane are among several California heavyweights forming a new firm solely designed to work on ballot-box campaigns.

Schmidt ran Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election drive, while Lehane worked in the Clinton White House and defeated a GOP attempt to change California's electoral college system.

The new firm, LFM Campaigns, also will include:
-- Democratic consultant Ace Smith, who was Hillary Clinton's California presidential campaign chairman and serves as an adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a potential gubernatorial candidate
-- Republican strategist Adam Mendelsohn, adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the governor's former communications director
-- Mark Fabiani, Lehane's longtime business partner and a former communications aide to President Clinton

"If you look at the history of proposition work, the ones that have been most successful from a strategic perspective are those that have crossed party lines or have been seen as bipartisan," Lehane said.

There's a Murderer's Row of willing stooges.

And people wonder why the state is perpetually in crisis. With consultants like these...

Think about the timing, too. Right now, when ballot-box budgeting is crippling the state with unworkable burdens and all energies should be focused on untangling the structural traps that make the state ungovernable, Lehane and co. happily flit around, taking corporate money for "bipartisan" ballot measures that will do precisely the opposite.

The sickest thing is that these are the people Democratic lawmakers still think it makes sense to listen to. California Democratic Party money has poured into their pockets. The consultant class of hired guns in Sacramento may be the biggest contributor to the permanent crisis mode in which we find ourselves. Hope that "bipartisan" cash satisfies you while the state burns, fellas.

The Crime Of Writing

Looks like Leno screwed up.

The restrictions that the striking Writers Guild of America has placed on late-night television hosts to keep them from writing material for their shows continued to have no impact on the leading late-night star, Jay Leno, who planned once again to write and perform a comedy monologue for NBC’s “Tonight Show” Friday night.

A spokeswoman said Friday that the guild would definitely take some action against Mr. Leno, who is a member.

“The answer is, he is not getting a pass,” said Sherry Goldman, a spokeswoman for the Writers Guild of America East. She said that the action to be taken had not yet been specified.

The restrictions are very specific. A host who is also a member of the Guild must limit his duties to the amount of writing he normally does. Otherwise, he's a scab. Which probably suits Leno fine, whatever the execs want.

But they're having lots of trouble getting decent guests. And the Screen Actors Guild will not cross picket lines for the Golden Globes, basically shutting down that awards show. And apparently, United Artists might be breaking from the studio cartel to reach their own deal with writers. The big money execs want to make writers pay and want no compromise. But with nightly barrages like this:



Their public opinion profile will continue to lower (not that they care; they'll forever be seen as greedy snakes in the grass).

Quite a star you've hitched yourself to, Chris Lehane!

What Good Democratic Consultants Do

Bill Carrick and Kam Kuwata are the anti-Chris Lehane.

The Writers Guild of America has retained veteran Democratic political consultants Bill Carrick and Kam Kuwata to provide assistance on the strategic and PR fronts of the 8-week-old strike.

"We both have friends in the WGA," Kuwata told Daily Variety. "And we have landed a lot of times on the sides that are pro-labor."

The duo came aboard earlier this month at the guild's behest in the wake of the Dec. 7 collapse of negotiations between the WGA and the AMPTP, which insisted that the guild remove half a dozen proposals from the table as a condition of continuing to bargain. The WGA refused, and no new talks have been scheduled, while the Directors Guild of America is widely expected to set a start date for negotiations on its contract within the next week.

Kuwata said he and Carrick will work for the WGA for as long as needed.

Carrick ran the Angelides campaign and Kuwata has worked a lot with DiFi in the past. But at least that they understand that Democrats stand with workers, unlike Chris Lehane. I'd rather reject that corporate money and be on the side of those who just want their fair share.

Union-Buster Lehane: The Unions Fight Back

The SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles just fired Chris Lehane. This is the first. I don't see how any union could ever hire this guy again after he has gone to work for management, and management who wants to bust their union.

"By the end of the week, I believe Chris Lehane will have no union clients because of his work for the AMPTP," says SEIU President Andy Stern, who confirms that all Change to Win Unions are severing ties with Lehane. "His days are numbered in the labor movement."

Management probably pays better. Hopefully his soul can live with it, too.

UPDATE: Lehane probably has a place waiting for him at Bush's Department of Labor:

Political operatives in the Department of Labor are using federal reporting requirements to undermine trade unions and conduct a "political misinformation campaign" against them, a report released yesterday charges.

While the Bush administration has generally relaxed federal regulations, the department's Office of Labor-Management Standards has done the reverse, beefing up disclosure rules, staff and investigations of union leaders and members, the study by the left-leaning Center for American Progress said.

The study criticized the reporting requirements as designed to overwhelm unions with paperwork and trick them into noncompliance. It also accused the office of inflating the number of criminal cases involving union leaders and members.

The report was triggered by the office's latest requirement, new conflict-of-interest reports that, as of Jan. 1, would require a broad pool of union members to attest that even their car loans do not constitute a potential conflict.

The head hatchet man in the office right now is Don Todd, who came up with the Willie Horton ad. Come on, Lehane, you can be dirtier than him!

Welcome To The Sweatshop For The Laptop Set

We learned yesterday that Chris Lehane used to do damage control for the corporation trying to limit PR fallout from massive health and safety violations while building the eastern span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. He's currently plying his trade as a paid shill for studios and networks who have the simple goal of busting the Hollywood labor movement.

Writers, (WGA head Patric Verrone) said, were looking to restore a sense of leverage and status that had been lost as ever-larger corporations took control of the entertainment business. He described Hollywood as teetering on the brink of a dark age, as far as creative types were concerned. “I think if they could do this business without us, they would, and so making our task as mechanical and simple and low-paying and unartistic as possible,” Mr. Verrone said.

The solution, he added, was to squeeze the corporations that own the studios, in an effort to represent the legion of writers on reality and animated shows that the guild had not organized through sign-up drives [...]

Accusing guild leaders of pursuing “an ideological mission far removed from the interests of their members,” representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expressed outrage over continuing demands of the writers that were not strictly related to pay.

These include requests for jurisdiction over those who write for reality TV shows and animated movies; for oversight of the fair-market value of intracompany transactions that might affect writer pay; and the elimination of a no-strike clause that prevents guild members from honoring the picket lines of other unions once a contract is reached.

The tone of shock in the producers’ statement seemed a bit artificial, as Mr. Verrone has for months laid out his plan to elevate the writers’ industry status.

This is the part where Lehane picked up the story and started writing it from his suite.

Yet their anger is genuine. Executives know that to concede the writers’ noneconomic demands would lead to a radical shift in industry power.

Riiight. See, now it's conglomerates 99.999999%, employees 0.000001%. If you actually gave the same benefits to everyone who generates a script, whether they did so before or after the shoot, that would shoot up to .000009%! That's a 9-fold increase!

And the other complaint, that a no-strike clause would be a death knell to the business, is absurd. This is a classic strategy of divide and conquer. Forcing union members to work and not honor another union's strike is an attempt at isolation and union busting. This city's unions don't get along that well; often they're competing for membership (IATSE's leader just blasted the WGA because they have some animation writers in their stable and they don't want to lose them). Furthermore, on any given day 1 out of 3 industry workers are unemployed. There's already little incentive for solidarity, and the studios want to eliminate that even further.

Let me introduce you to a new word: permalance. I know it because I've been one, on several occasions. In no other business that I know can you be working for 40 hours a week at one company for several months and not be a permanent employee. MTV workers just learned the hard way why conglomerates do this: because it gives you no leverage.

Scores of workers from MTV Networks walked off the job yesterday afternoon, filling the sidewalk outside the headquarters of its corporate parent, Viacom, to protest recent changes in benefits.

Freelance workers from MTV Networks outside the headquarters of the company’s corporate parent, Viacom, Monday.
The walkout highlighted the concerns of a category of workers who are sometimes called permalancers: permanent freelancers who work like full-time employees but do not receive the same benefits.

Waving signs that read “Shame on Viacom,” the workers, most of them in their 20s, demanded that MTV Networks reverse a plan to reduce health and dental benefits for freelancers beginning Jan. 1.

In a statement, MTV Networks noted that its benefits program for full-time employees had also undergone changes, and it emphasized that the plan for freelancers was still highly competitive within the industry. Many freelancers receive no corporate benefits.

In other words, you're lucky you get anything at all, so STFU.

The media business has being playing this game for years, and because most of their employees are too young to know the difference, there's been little outcry. The WGA labor action is shining a bright light on the practices of this industry, which is a massive profit-maker globally. At some point, you get sick and tired of being pushed around.

Studios Sabotage Talks With WGA

You figured that when the AMPTP hired Democratic turncoats Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani, they were signaling a long and drawn-out strike. Sure enough, the studios walked out of negotiations after delivering an ultimatum to the writers and dropping a press release filled with lies.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers today at 2:35 PM put a so-called revised proposal, including a list of demands, on the bargaining table to flesh out its New Economic Partnership for the Writers Guild Of America.

I'm told even agent Bryan Lourd, considered an objective source, considered that the AMPTP proposal bettered the studios' and networks' terms on the table for New Media. It included a new and improved, albeit slightly, streaming deal for theatricals.

But the AMPTP issued demands that the writers take Reality TV and animation jurisdiction off the table as well as remove the no-strike clause in their contract. (The latter means that, if the writers settle with the AMPTP, then they must cross picket lines if the Screen Actors Guild goes on strike.) [...]

At 6:05 PM, Counter knocked on the hotel room door trying to find out some indication from Dave Young what the WGA was going to do, especially on the reality/animation jurisdiction and no-strike issues. Counter brought Bryan Lourd along "as a witness," I'm told. "David Young answered and was visibly angry."

Insiders say that Bryan Lourd counseled the WGA negotiators that "this was their maximum moment of leverage" and urged them to try to "trust" the AMPTP. But they told Lourd they couldn't at this point. "It was an ultimatum. They said unless we take everything off the table except streaming and ESTs that they're not going to negotiate anymore and basically they're leaving until we'll remove all those other things," a WGA board member explained. "We're not accepting an ultimatum. We're here to bargain and to talk."

Counter then said to Young, "In that case, we are leaving. When you send us a letter confirming you will take all these items off the table, we will reschedule negotiations with you.” The WGA hotel room door slammed shut [...]

What's amazing about all of the above is that the AMPTP followed almost to the letter a script which they themselves conceived and wrote earlier in the week. I had reported Thursday night that the reps for the studios and networks planned to break off today's talks. This morning, the WGA issued a sternly worded statement calling out at the AMPTP for the plan to stop the negotiation just as it was getting go. Indeed, just as I had predicted, the AMPTP had a news release at the ready tonight announcing why it was leaving the talks. So did IATSE local boss Tom Short, indicating he was working in concert with the AMPTP tonight to blame the WGA.

One thing for sure: no one can have any doubt this time around who walked out on these negotiations and who stayed in. Not even professional spin doctors can change that.

I have to say I have a lot more respect for the WGA right now. They truly worked to further my interests and grow their union by increasing jurisdiction. If they don't, we'll be right back here in three years, with the studios putting more and more non-union product on the air, and I think everyone recognizes that. In addition, the AMPTP hasn't budged off their stingy deal on Internet streaming, nor to they feel any constraint to do so. They mean to break the union, and they've brought in a pair of union-busters to do so.

Here's an example of some AMPTP lying:

-- They demand full control over reality television and animation. In other words, they want us to make membership in their union mandatory to work in this industry - even though thousands of people in reality and animation have already chosen not to join the WGA.

Reality workers haven't had that choice. Thousands, in fact, HAVE signed WGA cards, present company included. There have been lawsuits. There was even a strike action. Nobody's chosen not to join the WGA. They've been stymied.

Now the AMPTP and Lehane are trying a sucker punch. They are going to open negotiations with the Director's Guild, a compliant union, to try and establish a baseline for WGA negotiations. No biggie; they're allowed to deal with whoever they want. But the core issues of the writers continue. The studios want to wall off the Internet the way they practically walled off DVD sales. They want all the profits for themselves. And they want an outlet of nonunion programming as a club to beat union members.

Fine. Then pencils down.

Write The Studios

I've just added an advertisement on the side column. Firedoglake, whose new redesign is excellent, has set up a call to action where you can email the studios who put together your favorite shows and ask them to negotiate in good faith with the writers and give them the proper share of the profits which they deserve.

Here's a copy of the letter:

I cannot tell you how many hours of pleasure the creators and writers of this show have brought into our lives. It is for that reason that I write to ask you to treat those writers fairly.

The writers are asking for a fair share of internet and new media revenues--revenues you yourselves trumpet loudly. Robert Iger talks about "a billion five in digital." Sumner Redstone says, "Viacom will double its revenues this year from digital." Rupert Murdoch says the digital era holds "golden opportunities." Disney's annual report says, "The popularity of the ABC.com player adds to the Company's considerable success in monetizing its biggest hits." Les Moonves says that when five million people watch CSI on the internet, "We will get paid for it regardless... We're going to get paid no matter where you get it from." (He projected a two billion dollar profit from that show alone.) Yet the Alliance of Television and Motion Picture Producers (AMPTP), negotiating for your company, says that the internet and new media markets are still too iffy, too conjectural to give writers a fair piece of. Worse, it claims the right to stream entire movies and whole television episodes, with advertising, for "promotional" purposes, without compensating the writers for this re-use. These positions do not make common sense. (When studios and networks doesn't get paid, it's called "piracy." When the studios and networks don't pay writers, it's called "promotion.")

Please tell the AMPTP to negotiate fairly so that the television season--and my favorite show--can resume. I love watching it, but I love the idea of treating its creators and writers fairly even more.

The studios' recent hiring of Chris Lehane shows that they're looking for a protracted fight. This could be over tomorrow if the studios would simply operate in good faith and reserve a small sliver of their astronomical profits for the talented men and women who actually create the programming. And that goes for any piece of programming with a script - which includes animation, reality, nonfiction, anything.

You can write the studios here.

Everything You Want To Know About The Decayed CA Democratic Consultant Class

Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani just got hired by the AMPTP, the coalition of the movie studios and networks, to help their PR during the WGA strike.

Make. Me. Sick.

So we have two of the go-to consultants for the California Democratic Party - the ones doing the top-level opposition to the Dirty Tricks initiative, for example - representing management in a labor fight, and not just any management, but one which is completely dishonest, and has earned the enmity of the entire blogosphere and arguably the entire country thanks to the excellent grassroots and netroots efforts of the writers. They've responded to union demands by trying to roll back the writer's residuals. They've lied from Day One about how little money they make off of product on the Internet. And they've openly attempted union busting tactics to stop the WGA juggernaut.

This is the lot that Lehane and Fabiani (and Schwarzenegger/Bush/Cheney hack Steve Schmidt!) have thrown in with.

Well this oughta be fun. Because we're about to see a battle for hearts and minds between Democratic Party insiders and the creative talent of the writing community.

If it was a boxing match, it'd be called before the first punch is thrown.

UPDATE: The interesting thing, of course, is that this comes at a time when talks are finally getting substantive, particularly with respect to union jurisdiction over the Internet and reality TV. That's quite astonishing to me, as it appeared to be the first thing the WGA was ready to give up early in the strike. This takes the model of getting the smaller things done first, and saving the big items, like residuals for content streamed online, for later.

But bringing in the masters of disaster suggests a very long, drawn-out fight, at least over that element.