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"We're going to strike!!"

YAY!!!

"But not tonight!!!"

Um...YAY!!!

"But tomorrow...!!!"

YAY...?

"...we will MEET..."

Yay?

"...to decided WHEN we're going to strike!!!"

Yay.

"Which might be NEXT WEEK...!!!"

Yay!?!

"...though the studios say they will continue to negotiate with us through the weekend and could close said contract by the end of Sunday."

...

"If that happens, we won't strike."

Zzzz...

It's like watching the last 3:37 of an NBA Final.

Game One.

Maher should just do the panel for the whole show. He can come up with topics by himself. Hell, invite a studio exec and a writer to participate, or a writer, director, and actor.

The scripted bits on Real Time are the most hacky ones, anyway.

How about an entire show live from the picket line? Make the show about the strike and interview writers on the picket line?

I understand that if the writers call a strike, it isn't kosher to perform any material that was written after the strike was called (regardless of who wrote it). What is the issue in performing material that was written before the strike was called? I thought it was OK to use existing scripts.

David, is it safe to assume that you a viewer of Bill Maher's show?

It's really awful if the writers go on strike and shut down half the industry.

Yes, we can understand that they want a bigger piece of the pie, but consider all the people whose jobs are being affected that don't have the strength of a union behind them, and work paycheck to paycheck to support their families.

Maybe the producers do screw the writers, but does that make it right for the writers to screw every single person below them on the totem pole?

Above the line people fighting just fucks the below the line people, and all the people on the fringes of the industry.

But of course, you hardly ever hear talk of those people, because it's not sexy to talk about.

And I certainly don't hear writers, who think they are so put upon, talking about the harm they are about to do to thousands of other people.

Yes, I think it's totally selfish. And ugly. And wrong.

Hey Carpetmuncher, you should be blaming the AMPTP for all that stuff you just said. I'm not in the film industry, just an observer, but the WGA's requests don't seem unreasonable. They want 8 cents per DVD rather than the current 4 and an equally pitiful percentage for new media. It's really too bad that so many below the line people, and local business will suffer, but it ain't the writer's fault.

The question is whether we'd get the same percentage without the strike. If yes, then all we've done is hurt people and ourselves.

"Maybe the producers do screw the writers, but does that make it right for the writers to screw every single person below them on the totem pole?"

So you're way of dealing with being screwed is...keep getting screwed! Brilliant!

Have you thought just kinda maybe sorta that if the writers stand up then that inspires others too and it puts fear into the greedy fucks in charge not to persist?

What exactly would your plan be?

here's a letter from a below the line guy in response to carpetmuncher's disgust:

“I received this letter from a Teamster. It lays out why New Media and Union Solidarity are both issues we need to stand up for right now.)

‘I am a teamster. A location scout on a TV show. My small corner of Warner Brothers Television is far removed from the writers’ offices. I make a fraction of what they do, work more hours, and my family’s schedule is ruined every time they write “EXT: NIGHT.” I’ve been on my current show for 10 weeks and I just met my first writer.

Yet if the next time I see him he’s wearing a red shirt and carrying a placard, I will not cross his line.

Why?

I could just say “Teamsters don’t cross picket lines.” I could just say “I need a vacation.” I could just say “I believe in the rights of the working man.” While that is all true, the real reason is more complex. I believe this is the opening round of a long battle that every union member in Hollywood will have to face as our contracts expire.

The digital world is not in the future, it is here now. It is now possible to watch Television and Movies entirely on the internet, and the network sites, with ads galore, are proof. This is not a hypothetical. It is profit-making reality. If the writers are denied fair payment for reuse, I do not believe the Directors, Actors and the rest of us will fare any better when our turn comes.

Yes, I said the “rest of us.” While I don’t receive individual residual payments for my work as a teamster, my pension and health fund does. As the distribution stream goes digital those residual payments will slow to a trickle, and the fund will suffer. When the time comes I plan on being old, sick, and in need of Health Care. And the WB doesn’t want me to have it.

So no, I will not be crossing any picket line. And I ask you to join me. Not for the writers. Not for Me. Not for my kids. Not even for you. For all of us. Because that’s what it’s going to take. All of us.’

(The Teamsters are an amazing union who I highly admire. I understand that there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. I understand that some sacrifices for some people will be too big to make. In terms of the legality of what the Companies can do, and the letter threats Teamsters are receiving – reach out to your union’s legal department. They’ll be able to guide you.)”

I blame AMPTP as well. Definitely.

But the Writers are walking out. That is what is shutting down the industry. They are making a choice. And that choice affects people below them on the food chain. And there doesn't seem to be any care about that. So of course it is the writers fault. They want more, and are quiting because they aren't getting it.

But it would seem that the writers are striking now out of anger and not wisdom. Clearly they would have more leverage if they waited until June 30th and had SAG and DGA on their side as well.

But they seem to be jumping the gun in an effort to hurt the industry even more, by destroying a TV season. The point of striking now is to inflict the most damage possible.

Look, the people in the AMPTP that the WGA is mad at are not going to go hungry because the WGA walks out. They will go home to Malibu or Mulholland and find another way to make money while the WGA pickets.

The people who will be hurt are the ones who aren't involved. The people who will be hurt are the ones that don't have a union to help them. And that is probably half the industry. Who is standing up for these people? No one.

Look, to me, the WGA are also screwing themselves completely by striking, as they have in the past. If they really wanted to do the smart and right thing, they would wait and work with SAG and the DGA. Solidarity with the other unions would force the studios hand.

Hollywood can survive without WGA writers. But it can't survive without movie stars.

As in the past, the WGA is overplaying their hand, and it will likely bite them in the ass.

Unfortunately, they are also fucking over hard working people industry-wide.

The writers are doing the old "take my ball and go home." Now, no one can play. Utter bullshit.

Look, I admire the Teamsters and their stand on this. I think solidarity is a great thing, and tend to support unions over corporations. I'm always for the little guy.

But the fact is, the unionized parts of the industry are simply not the little guy. They are the middle-class.

The lower class of the industry, all the people not fortunate enough to be making union rates and having the protection of the union, and their health benefits and pension, those are the people that are getting totally screwed. And I don't anyone talking about them.

The WGA just doesn't represent the working man to me. It's a bunch of the movie elite fighting with more of the movie elite.

It's like the baseball players striking against the owners.

Who gets fucked? The people that clean the stadiums, the people that sell the T-Shirts, the people that make the food. I.e., the people who are paycheck to paycheck and can least afford to have their jobs and lives turned upside down by people more fortunate than them taking the ball and going home.

I guess mostly I think the WGA is overplaying their hand as they always have, and will end up making another bad deal, as they always have. Which means there is a 50% chance that the strike will be practically meaningless in the long run, and then everybody loses. And what if the WGA does win some things in the negotiations? Well, the WGA members get a little more cash, at the expense of all the less fortunate people who the strike will effect.

"What exactly would your plan be?"

Well, I wouldn't have been saber-rattling for the past couple of years and trying to antagonize the studios - actions that can only be met with militancy in return.

Then, I would've reopened the Internet negotiations months ago - before even starting in with any of the rest of the MBA. But even if I preferred negotiating the entire MBA at once, I wouldn't have waited until the very last minute to start.

I also wouldn't be trying to refight battles we lost three decades ago. We can't win it, certainly not while we're trying to get a decent number on something else.

There's very likely a reason that the AMPTP got to what should've been the opening offer on the eve of contract negotiations. They're very likely setting the stage to make a deal with the far-less-militant DGA.

By doing so, they'll give us the number they were going to give us anyway (and they'll probably take away some separated rights), and they'll show us that all the shouting and grandstanding and militant strike talk did was hurt us and prevent us from making a deal.

But that's just my opinion.

"to what should've been the opening offer on the eve of contract negotiations."

That should read: "to what should've been the opening offer on the eve of the contract expiration."

Carpetmuncher:

You show a complete lack of understanding of what's going on. This isn't about the rich getting richer. Most artists in the film/television industry survive (and I mean survive) on residuals. That includes actors, writers, directors, even below the line because their health/welfare plans are tied to residuals.

The AMPTP is attacking that source of revenue. Because, sooner or later, all residuals will be internet residuals. And the AMPTP refuses to discuss new media AT ALL.

Secondly, do you think the AMPTP is so stupid as to let the writers get to June 30th? You would surely have seen the writers locked out in March. And then things really would look like '88.

"And the AMPTP refuses to discuss new media AT ALL."

Except that they offered us the DVD rate in their last offer (with some off-the-table as promotional).

They have a number in mind, and that'll be what we end up getting - strike or no.

Also, we could've forced them to talk Internet and nothing but Internet by reopening the sideletter well in advance of the main MBA negotiations, but we chose not to. It may not have made any difference, but we didn't even try.

They offered the DVD rate in 2004 too. Considering that all residuals will be New Media, do you want the template to be the DVD rate?

It doesn't matter what I would want. I'm just noting that you said they're not talking about Internet at all while they actually have moved from where they were a week or so ago.

It's a negotiation. We said 2.5%, they said .3%. Without all the militancy of the last few years, that would've been the opening offer to start off the negotiations and we'd work from there.

Instead, that will be the opening offer in the DGA negotiations while we sit out not earning money, and in the end, the number that we will get will be exactly the same number we would've gotten had we just continued working.

No, you misunderstand. The AMPTP believes DVD and new media are one and the same. They are not willing to sever. They did not "come up." They proposed .3% in last contract talk and WGA agreed to table issue. They have maintained .3% and will brook no discussion on the issue. Nick Counter in his statement Wednesday night equated the two and called them inseparable.

Now, if you know anything about the history of bargaining over DVDs, you will know that the studios argued the same thing on VHS that they are now arguing on new media. It needs to grow and mature. But as we have all seen, when the market matured, the rates remained the same. To accept the only deal on the table now is to accept .3% in perputuity.

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