The SAG Missive Crisis
I was not in favor of WGA going out on strike when it did. I felt it was premature and poorly timed. Nothing about the settlement has changed my perspective on that. I feel that the AMPTP gave WGA almost exactly what they were always willing to give up. And WGA, by striking, gave AMPTP an extra gift that they may not have had to give AMPTP… force majeur and an excuse for in-house “layoffs.”
Truth is, we will never know for sure whether the strike was necessary. The contract WGA got, and DGA before them, is fine. It was not a great step forward… but it was not a step backwards either. The elephant in the room remains the $100 million-plus a year in DVD residuals in the life of this contract that came off the table and more than paid for any concession that AMPTP made, at least in the life of this contract. And the house cleaning opportunity made this 100 day strike a likely money maker for most AMPTP members.
That said… the growing wave of pre-contract civil war at SAG is making the WGA guys look like a bunch of unmitigated geniuses.
There are three fronts in the war.
1. We Don’t Want Another Strike This Year
2. SAG vs AFTRA
3. Qualified Voting
The biggest problem facing SAG leadership right now is trying to separate the three issues… a problem made harder by questions of who might be lurking behind some of the maneuvers. But first, a brief primer on the three fronts.
1. We Don’t Want Another Strike This Year
This is where I am willing, at least until proven otherwise, to give Clooney, DeNiro, Hanks, and Streep the benefit of the doubt in this situation. They took out this ad in Variety:
The does not speak to any of the major issues facing the Guild, internally or as a part of the AMPTP negotiation. It simply asks that there be forward motion.
One of the problems, again, with this situation is that the Guild’s internal issues – which may be much more dangerous than the AMPTP – have the most political members of the Guild wanting to open those issues to debate in the same period as the AMPTP contract is being negotiated. Why? Because that is the time when membership is most likely be willing to listen to the debate over these issues.
Having had the chance to speak to Clooney about the WGA strike in November, he was pretty confident that the town would be shut down until the end of summer. That is not the case. And I am completely willing to believe that he simply wanted to take a position that the tone that precipitated the WGA strike should not overtake SAG.
However, there are a few problems with this ad.
I was not in favor of WGA going out on strike when it did. I felt it was premature and poorly timed. Nothing about the settlement has changed my perspective on that. I feel that the AMPTP gave WGA almost exactly what they were always willing to give up. And WGA, by striking, gave AMPTP an extra gift that they may not have had to give AMPTP… force majeur and an excuse for in-house “layoffs.”
Truth is, we will never know for sure whether the strike was necessary. The contract WGA got, and DGA before them, is fine. It was not a great step forward… but it was not a step backwards either. The elephant in the room remains the $100 million-plus a year in DVD residuals in the life of this contract that came off the table and more than paid for any concession that AMPTP made, at least in the life of this contract. And the house cleaning opportunity made this 100 day strike a likely money maker for most AMPTP members.
That said… the growing wave of pre-contract civil war at SAG is making the WGA guys look like a bunch of unmitigated geniuses.
There are three fronts in the war.
1. We Don’t Want Another Strike This Year
2. SAG vs AFTRA
3. Qualified Voting
The biggest problem facing SAG leadership right now is trying to separate the three issues… a problem made harder by questions of who might be lurking behind some of the maneuvers. But first, a brief primer on the three fronts.
1. We Don’t Want Another Strike This Year
This is where I am willing, at least until proven otherwise, to give Clooney, DeNiro, Hanks, and Streep the benefit of the doubt in this situation. They took out this ad in Variety:
The does not speak to any of the major issues facing the Guild, internally or as a part of the AMPTP negotiation. It simply asks that there be forward motion.
One of the problems, again, with this situation is that the Guild’s internal issues – which may be much more dangerous than the AMPTP – have the most political members of the Guild wanting to open those issues to debate in the same period as the AMPTP contract is being negotiated. Why? Because that is the time when membership is most likely be willing to listen to the debate over these issues.
Having had the chance to speak to Clooney about the WGA strike in November, he was pretty confident that the town would be shut down until the end of summer. That is not the case. And I am completely willing to believe that he simply wanted to take a position that the tone that precipitated the WGA strike should not overtake SAG.
However, there are a few problems with this ad.