Measuring the Wrong Costs

A new study has determined that the 100-day writers strike cost Los Angeles $2.5 billion dollars. I was actually working the entire strike, so I didn't feel the impact. But there are so many moving parts on a film or television set - grips, gaffers, cameramen, focus pullers, craft services, drivers, construction, hair, makeup, etc. - that the number seems plausible to me.

What they ought to track is how much money will be lost to writers and industry workers AFTER the strike. Because the studios took the opportunity of the strike to hit the reset button on a lot of bad development deals they had. They took a fresh look at a bunch of shows and after determining that they had all kinds of leverage over them, put the hammer down:

LA Weekly's Nikki Finke reports that NBC has thanked Carson Daly for crossing the picket line to resume taping his late-night show during the writers' strike by slashing his budget and firing nine members of his staff, including three of his four writers. The network insists its decision has nothing to do with the strike. Finke says Daly became a scab because NBC threatened to cancel him unless he went back to work.

And Daly was one of the few who COOPERATED.

More important, the studios began to change the way they do business and cast aside the outdated model of previewing new shows in the fall, with NBC making the first move. What this means is that eventually there will be no pilot season. And that likely means a lot less pilots. We're already seeing the networks buy shows from other countries wholesale (instead of just reproducing them) and filling the schedule with a lot more reality and nonunion programming. This will probably spell the end of the upfronts, the annual event where networks preview the fall schedule to advertisers.

This had to happen sometime, the fall preview model was a relic. But the cost to writers is going to be significant. By neglecting to grow the union membership through gaining jurisdiction over everything on television, the Writer's Guild will see opportunities for their current members dry up. Despite this, the strike was successful because it showed that a labor union can still drive the agenda in Hollywood. But financially? I'm not sure it was a victory.

Forward Thinking Needed

Looks like the writer's strike is about to come to an end. The membership is pretty likely to go along with the result of the negotiations. From my perspective, which is admittedly limited, the union sold out people like me who are storytellers on nonunion shows, thousands of us who signed cards asking them to negotiate on our behalf, and followed a strategy of getting as much as possible for current membership instead of growing the union. As a result, expect lots more American Gladiator spinoffs and the like and less opportunities for WGA members in the broadcast format, although with the impending unlimited-channel universe of the Internet maybe there are some additional possibilities.

In general I laud what the writers were able to do, but the strategy may come crashing back on them in the long run.

California Non-Election Stuff In Bullet-Point Form

• According to Dan Walters, all his serious economist friends are telling him there's no recession yet, theoreticaly speaking. He might want to read his own paper, about how the Employment Development Department can't keep up with the demand for unemployment benefits and everyone calling in is getting a busy signal. Tip to those who apparently aren't feeling a recession: use the EDD website.

• In a reversal to the Bush Administration, a judge has ruled that George Bush cannot exempt the Navy from environmental laws regarding the use of sonar within 12 miles of the California coast. Not that Bush followed the ruling of the judiciary the first time, but...

• There are still high hopes for an end to the WGA strike, and meetings in Los Angeles and New York have been scheduled for the weekend (ostensibly to present the contract), but caution lies ahead, as more foreign imports and reality television are likely to wind up on schedules, and less pilots are likely to be shot. Of course, this was my point all along, and why I underscored the need to grow the union for the benefit of everyone involved and give everything on television the opportunity to unionize. But jurisdiction for reality and animation was dropped in the most recent round of talks, and there will be consequences to that.

• Our friends at the SEIU are going to start a $75 million dollar, year-long, national campaign in support of universal health care. I have to think that this is a positive by-product of the coalition built in California around the ultimately unsuccessful effort on health care reform. If so, then there was nothing unsuccessful about it. It's very exciting to see a full media and ground effort to draw the policy distinctions on health care between the parties, and to advocate for a system that makes sense for working families.

WGA Forgets Their Allies, Sows The Seeds Of Their Own Disaster

The WGA just ensured more American Idols far into the future.

WGA demands for reality TV and animation jurisdiction are officially off the table.

The WGA said so Tuesday in confirming its informal talks with studio chiefs, aimed at getting stalled contract negotiations back on track. Scribes may or may not end up accepting contract terms similar to the DGA's, but the move follows the directors' lead by first meeting informally with studio executives under the cover of a press blackout [...]

"In order to make absolutely clear our commitment to bringing a speedy conclusion to negotiations, we have decided to withdraw our proposals on reality and animation," the guild said. "Our organizing efforts to achieve guild representation in these genres for writers will continue. You will hear more about this in the next two weeks."

I saw this one coming a mile away.

I'm someone who would have benefited from expanding jurisdiction, someone who signed a card to have the WGA fight for jurisdiction, someone who's attended rallies and supported individual strikes in favor of jurisdiction. Once again the WGA is following the old-union model of getting whatever they can for their old membership instead of growing the membership. Prepare for plenty more reality shows, more than are on the air now, and a shrinking of the union writing jobs on television. And in a few years we'll all be back here again. The studios now have no incentive to put scripted, Guild-protected shows on the air. That's great.

Do Better Than Bad Singers Singing, AMPTP

So Fox and its a-hole entertainment boss Peter Chernin thought that, in the absence of most new programming because of the writer's strike, they'd clean up with the premiere of American Idol. Turns out that their year-over-year ratings were down. People have figured out other ways to take up their time. A sinking tide lowers all boats.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy than Peter Chernin. Maybe if you negotiate with your employees in good faith for reasonable rates for their work, things can get back to normal. Calling for informal talks is a good start.

(Meanwhile, the DGA has come to a tentative agreement and it's not all that bad, and it could be a launching pad for WGA talks.)

He's Not Your Monkey

Been meaning to get to this all week. The New York Times got all catty about Jon Stewart's return without his writers, people who he's worked with for close to a decade and to whom he owes his success. How dare he not treat us all to some of that acerbic wit, and how dare he "educate" his viewers about why he's been off the air for nine weeks:

Instead of the latest primary mishaps, Mr. Stewart devoted most of his mock news show to the writers’ strike and to his own decision to return to work without writers (or censors: he let off several obscenities that were not bleeped in time) [...]

Last night, Mr. Stewart’s vexation was keener than his wit.

He likened the “Speechless” ads, a series of bleak, self-righteous black and white video spots on the guild’s Web site, to an anti-AIDS public service message. He noted that late-night talk shows stayed dark for just one week after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, whereas the current strike — a dispute over Internet revenues — had lasted nine weeks. And he joked, somewhat sourly, that by that calculation, “the writers’ strike is nine times worse than 9/11.”

His sole interview for the night was with Ron Seeber, a professor of labor relations at Cornell University, who failed to clarify why the strike was going on so long. (That's silly - he was brought on to talk about labor relations in general -ed.)

Mr. Stewart had funny moments. But overall, the show was a jarring display of solipsism from a performer famous for expertly tweaking the vanity and self-importance of politicians and conventional news organizations. Mr. Stewart is just as merciless when it comes to the self-serving compromises and moral ambiguities of other institutions. And his position was certainly ambiguous: he was resentful of the producers and angry at the writers’ representatives, who so far have failed either to reach an agreement or to grant Comedy Central a special exemption for “The Daily Show.”

It's solipsism, then, to discuss an issue which has far broader importance than who's winning or losing in New Hampshire. Just because labor issues rarely, if ever, appear in newspapers like The New York Times doesn't mean they don't have significance to anyone who works for a living. The WGA strike is a teachable moment, an opportunity to understand a labor issue because it involves something we all experience. Just because Stewart isn't being funny about what you want him to be funny about, doesn't mean he's not being funny. Or instructive.

For the record I thought both Stewart and Colbert did a great job this week under tough circumstances. As more companies settle with their writers, hopefully they won't have to continue that way for long.

(I don't know whether the Director's Guild negotiations set for next week are good or bad for the writers. Perhaps it will create pressure for an industry-wide agreement, but the DGA hasn't put up much of a fight in year's past.)

UPDATE: The AMPTP being a bunch of assholes. What a surprise.

AMPTP staffers, consultants and members (especially corporate publicity departments) are busily posting comments on WGA-friendly websites and blogs that Hollywood visits regularly and filling them with hate-filled rants against the WGA leadership, the A-list actors, and the companies who've made WGA side deals. The goal is to turn off readers and drive traffic away and in the process spread pro-AMPTP propaganda and make it look as if the strike is breaking apart.

News Corp. No. 2 Peter Chernin realized the AMPTP was losing the PR war and was most responsible for bringing in Fabiani and Lehane as the AMPTP's public affairs consultants since his company has a close relationship with them. Fabiani and Lehane were paid by News Corp. to orchestrate a 2004 campaign organizing advocacy groups by race and ethnicity to hammer Nielsen Media Research over its plans to modernize how it measures viewing habits.

Warner Bros Chairman Barry Meyer has handpicked the AMPTP paid mouthpieces who have spread the AMPTP's insults and disinformation about the WGA leadership.

The other day, an AMPTP consultant tried to start a rumor that a WGA exec was connected to child pornography.
The AMPTP repeatedly lies that the WGA has "a $30 million PR fund" to spread public information about the strike when the reality is that the WGA's entire communications budget is several hundred thousand dollars.

How's That Gig Going, Lehane

NBC just had to cancel the Golden Globes because of union solidarity. I know that the networks are trying to use this strike to revamp the entire television process, and they think they can bust the union. Do they think they can bust EVERY union?

By the way, UA did sign that interim agreement. We're making progress.

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!

Late-Night Reviews!

First in a one-part series.

Watching Letterman last night was at times like watching a revue at a union hall. There were frequent references to the writer's strike, including a direct appeal to the networks, ON THEIR OWN MEDIA, to negotiate in good faith. It was somewhat subversive and dangerous. Even the shows that were forced back on the air by management had some nice words for the writers.

There was also plenty of free on-air promotion for the guild's cause.

"The writers are correct, by the way. I'm a writer ... I'm on the side of the writers," Leno said.

"I want to make this clear. I support their cause," O'Brien said. "These are very talented, very creative people who work extremely hard. I believe what they're asking for is fair."

Letterman, who had grown a gray beard, brought writers on to recite a top 10 list of their strike demands. They included "complimentary tote bag with next insulting contract offer" and "Hazard pay for breaking up fights on `The View.'"

Apparently, Jimmy Kimmel was more of a good little company man. Doesn't surprise me.

The award for cluelessness goes to Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee said he supports the writers and did not think he would be crossing a picket line, because he believed the writers had made an agreement to allow late-night shows on the air. But that's not the case with Leno; "Huckabee is a scab," read one picket sign outside Leno's Burbank, Calif., studio.

The writers guild urged Huckabee not to cross their picket line after he flew out to California. But Huckabee appeared on Leno, even showing off his electric guitar playing with the band.

"Huckabee claims he didn't know," chief union negotiator John Bowman said. "I don't know what that means in terms of trusting him as a future president."

Bowman obviously hasn't been paying much attention. Huckabee doesn't know much of ANYTHING.

They Don't Respect Labor

I would say that it's telling that Hillary Clinton is appearing over on Letterman tonight, the one late-night show that has settled with its writers, while Mike Huckabee is crossing a picket line to appear on Jay Leno's show.

Also, it doesn't seem like Hillary's leaving Iowa to tape Letterman, while Huckabee is leaving the state where his advantage is tenuous at best to whoop it up with Jay.

Also, Jay is the guy most responsible for getting Arnold Schwarzenegger elected, he emceed his victory party, and Fred Thompson announced on his show. So the battle lines are clearly drawn.

With any luck, Huckabee will beat a picketer with his own sign and show just how much he thinks of the American worker!

UPDATE: Huckabee is also busy faulting Mitt Romney for not using the apparatus of the state to kill more people, which as we all know is a good Christian value.

Hollywood Working Class

I work in TV, normally in the "obscure show on the digital cable channel you probably don't get" genre. So I've been following the Writer's Guild strike with interest. The WGA went out at least in part over allowing me and other storytellers who work in "unscripted" TV the ability to join their union. Everything I've ever worked on has had a script, so I don't get the "unscripted" moniker. And whether you wrote the script before or after the taping, whoever generated it ought to get the same kind of benefits.

That's why I'm excited that David Letterman's show struck a deal with their writers, outside the cartel of studios, to bring them back to work.

David Letterman has secured a deal with the striking Writers Guild of America that will allow him to resume his late-night show on CBS next Wednesday with his team of writers on board, executives of several late-night shows said today.

Most of television’s late-night shows are scheduled to return to the air that night after being off for two months due to the strike, but it is likely that only Mr. Letterman, and the show that follows him on CBS hosted by Craig Ferguson, will be supported by material from writers.

The reason is that Mr. Letterman’s company World Wide Pants, owns both those shows. The company announced two weeks ago that it was seeking a separate deal with the guild that would permit the two World Wide Pants show to return to the air. The talks seemed to be at an impasse until today when the deal was completed.

There's a solidarity in Hollywood that I've rarely seen since I've been here, which is to say, there's solidarity in Hollywood. Other unions like the DGA and SAG are talking about putting up a united front. The writers are on the verge of chasing the Golden Globes off the air, and their new media strategy is paying off in public opinion. Now they're creating cracks in the cartel that wants to take this as far as they can go and bust the union.

I have learned: that the CEOs are deeply entrenched in their desire to punish the WGA for daring to defy them by striking and to bully the writers into submission on every issue, and that the moguls consider the writers are sadly misguided to believe they have any leverage left. I'm told the CEOs are determined to write off not just the rest of this TV season (including the Back 9 of scripted series), but also pilot season and the 2008/2009 schedule as well. Indeed, network orders for reality TV shows are pouring into the agencies right now. The studios and networks also are intent on changing the way they do TV development so they can stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars in order to see just a few new shows succeed. As for advertising, the CEOs seem determined to do away with the upfront business and instead make their money from the scatter market.

They want to make it impossible to work your way up as a writer. They'd rather use these nonunion shows, shit like American Gladiators (it's back!), and tell the writers to piss off, thinking that they'll crack. They should hear from the fans. FDL has a great tool you can use to write the studio heads and tell them to stop being so damn greedy. They can make it on $119 billion in profit a year instead of $120, while the people they owe those billions to are fairly compensated. If a small company like Letterman's can reach a deal, the AMPTP cartel can. Tell them to get back to the negotiating table so your favorite shows can get back on the air.

When Did The Golden Globes Become Such A Big Deal?

I have no idea, but if it's suddenly a high-profile event, absolutely the WGA should flex their muscle and picket it right into cable access.

Hollywood’s glamour machine has gotten stuck between a promise that the stars will still show up at next month’s Golden Globes and a threat that 3,000 picketing writers will chase them away [...]

...on Thursday, Jeff Hermanson, strike coordinator for the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East, was still promising a showdown on the sidewalks around the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where the Globes ceremony is set to be produced by Dick Clark Productions and broadcast by NBC on Jan. 13.

“If the Globes is telecast and it is produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is a struck company, we will picket the show,” Mr. Hermanson said in one of several interviews this week.

Panicked at the prospect of having to confront strikers as they waltz up the red carpet, celebrities have sent what Hollywood publicity executives describe as a near-unanimous signal: If striking writers show up, the stars won’t.

NBC, so far, is planning to forge ahead with its telecast, according to a person involved with the network’s plans, who requested anonymity to avoid further roiling the waters.

Yet people who have dealt with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in recent days said it is considering plans to salvage a bit of glow by scratching the telecast in favor of either a Webcast or, more likely, a purely private event. The ceremony, in its 65th year, was last staged without a broadcast in 1979.

Good. We need a little street action to shake this thing up. I'm waiting for the WGA to call a general strike. Do it when I'm on deadline, could ya?

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.

Writer's Strike Update

Things are moving on a variety of fronts in the WGA strike. While the AMPTP stalls and makes baseless charges, the Guild is trying some novel approaches. Not only have they filed an unfair labor practices charge against the AMPTP for walking away from a good-faith negotiation, they are challenging the very idea of bargaining with a cartel like the AMPTP itself.

Confronted with a logjam in its contract talks with the studios, the Writers Guild of America is trying a new tack: Divide and conquer.

On Monday, the union representing 10,500 striking writers plans to approach the major companies of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers about negotiating with them individually, a move aimed at exploiting perceived cracks in the alliance and getting at least some of the studios back to the bargaining table.

"We want to do everything in our power to move negotiations forward and end this devastating strike," the guild's negotiating committee said in a letter to be sent to union members today. "The internal dynamics of the [alliance] make it difficult for the conglomerates to reach consensus and negotiate with us on a give-and-take basis."

This approach is already bearing fruit. David Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants Inc., has agreed to negotiate their own deal with the writers . Because Letterman owns his program (as well as Late Night with Craig Ferguson), he can break with the AMPTP cartel and make this deal.

(I just want to step in and say that AMPTP.com is maybe the funniest parody site I've seen in a long time.)

But all is not well. With the AMPTP furious over these cracks in their united front (some would call it collusion), they've leaned on some of their stars to return to work.

Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will return to late-night TV with fresh episodes on Jan. 2, two months after the writers' strike sent them into repeats, the network said Monday.

The "Tonight" show and "Late Night" will return without writers supplying jokes. NBC said the decision was similar to what happened in 1988, when Johnny Carson brought back the "Tonight" show two months into a writers' strike.

A similar return — with writers — appears in the works for David Letterman. The union representing striking writers said over the weekend that it was willing to negotiate deals with individual production companies, including Letterman's Worldwide Pants.

It's disappointing that Leno and O'Brien aren't willing to hold out and see the big picture, but of course they are under contract. It's telling that this move was made as soon as Letterman signaled his intention to strike a deal with the writers.

However, in contrast to this action, it appears that the writer's strike is opening up eyes about what it means to work in this country, about what it means to stand together for worker's rights. The DGA, after flirting with starting negotiations with the AMPTP, has demurred. The writers are promoting separate labor issues like the plight of FedEx workers being called "independent contractors" so management can avoid providing benefits. And they're aiding in significant victories for the worker's rights movement.

In a memo issued this afternoon, MTV Networks performed a near-180, relenting to complaints from freelancers who were told last week their benefits would be cut. "We've implemented a process for evaluating freelance and temporary employee positions for possible conversion to staff positions," reads the announcement from JoAnne Griffith, MTVN's executive vice president for HR. "This process is currently underway." Freelancers will now have the choice to continue with their current health plan—including dental!—or sign on to MTV's Aetna plan. Either way, they won't have to make the decision until February of next year, nearly three months after the original deadline set by the company last week.

The writer's strike is one of the most high-profile labor actions of the last 30 years. It's crystallizing a lot of ideas about basic fairness for workers. This is maybe the most positive by-product of this important action.

What's Needed Is A Union of Unions

Matt Stoller notes that IATSE's President is badmouthing the WGA. That's normal. This goes back to jurisdiction fights between IATSE and the WGA that go back years, mainly over animation writers, actually, which IATSE signed up first. The starkest example is the 2006 WGA strike of America's Next Top Model. The story staff walked out, but IATSE wouldn't pull its editors. The execs and the editors finished the show, and the story staff all got fired.

There's a lot of cross-union animosity in Hollywood. The AMPTP is counting on that right now by negotiating with the DGA, which never walks out, to try and set a baseline for the other unions that is friendlier.

Late Night You Tube (x2!)

First, the best video I've seen from the writers during the strike:



Then, and you have to go to another page for this, which is a hardship, I know, but here's an important public service reminder from your wise and benevolent government minders. I'm thinking that the Democrats will grudgingly mint these new Bush coins in denominations of 1, 5, and 10 gallons, but only if they get to keep funding the war and personally build a border fence.

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.