Tentative Deal Struck with WGA
Writers met Saturday in New York City and Los Angeles to hear the proposal. The New York City membership (WGAE) generally was for lifting the strike. I don't have word yet on Los Angeles (WGAw.)
The Board can a) lift the strike on its own, b) schedule a 48 hour vote, or c) schedule a 10 day vote. I think option b, a 48 hour vote is most politically likely. That puts everyone back to work Wednesday, yet lets everyone be clear it is their choice to take this contract. Which in my view is as it should be, after this much sacrifice and work.
If the writers don't take the deal, most of it will be withdrawn. They will lose all their leverage -- the Academy Awards, Upfronts (selling the fall season), pilot season, hiring for the fall shows -- till June when SAG joins them on the picket lines. That's three more months of walking in circles for nothing, as there is no guarantee they'll get any better deal then.
The writers will take the deal (I say confidently.) Not perfect, but no negotiation is.
MissLaura at DailyKos has compiled some FAQs about the WGA deal. More available at United Hollywood.
I love The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but boy, do they need to get their writers back. Welcome News.
And by the way...FRIST!!!
woooooooooooooooooooooooot!
I hope the writers got what they wanted.
Now please start writing for the Colbert Report again.
About time. And good job WGA. Way to stick together. And stand up for yourselves.
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Oh goody!
The boob-tube is back in it's full glory.
Conformity need not be boring anymore.
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Who's watching. I couldn't tell you if they were playing reruns. I wasn't watching.
notice how the amptp writes these agreements
they make sure that none of the hollywood unions contracts end anywhere near each other
the wga blinked and got taken
if sag gets a better agreement, there is no favored nation clause written into the contract
the 17-24 day window on streaming content almost guarantees no residuals for anything placed on the net
the contract is filled with financial loopholes that the suits will take full advantage of
so what did the wga accomplish with this strike
well, they showed that they could bring solidarity to all the unions in hollywood
big whoop if it comes to nothing
and the fat cats at the amptp are laughing it up right now
clintons campaign manager has stepped down.
FUCK YEAH I CAN'T WAIT TO GET BACK TO WATCHING CRAP WRITTEN BY OVERPAID HACKS W00T W00T!!!!
I gave up watching TV six years ago and I feel better for it, fuck the psychic pollution that is peddled as entertainment on that godamm box. In case your wondering, I'm only 30, a child of Television, former TV junkie and even I can't stand it today.
andy @ 8:
Is this true??? Link me please!
ffff @ 10:
ditto!
Oh good. I'm so excited for new episodes of Grey's Anatomy and "must see T.V.!"
The Guild just announced that they will, in fact, hold a vote on Tuesday on whether or not to lift the strike immediately, or to wait until after the up/down vote on the contract, which will be conducted by mail over a ten day period. Judging from the sense of the room in NYC, the vote will probably be to lift immediately, and my guess would be that the contract will be ratified. It's not perfect by any means, but given what we were up against, to have come as far as we have feels pretty good. Thanks to everyone for the support expressed here and around the blogosphere--it mattered more than you can ever know.
CNN:: Sen. Hillary Clinton has replaced her presidential campaign manager.
Here's link:: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vote2008/story?id=4269776&page=1
Breaking News: I am really excited that there will be more than 8 episodes of Lost this year.
Thanx mo_dem.
geez...the elitests in this thread are just too funny
whether you watch tv or movies is not the point
the point was, there was an entire industry of people who were not gaining adequate compensation for work performed, and were being asked (and at times ordered on threat of termination) to create product for a new media where they would recieve no compensation
if they were auto workers, would you feel a little different on how they were being treated?
and clinton's campaign manager stepped down? far out
put bill in charge
andy @ 8:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, naming longtime aide Maggie Williams to the top job.
Solis Doyle announced the shift in an e-mail to the staff on Sunday.
"I have been proud to manage this campaign and prouder still to call Hillary my friend for more than 16 years," Solis Doyle wrote. "Maggie is a remarkable person and I am confident that she will do a fabulous job."
The move comes a day after rival Barack Obama swept contests in Washington state, Nebraska, Louisiana.
Doesn't say the campaign manager stepped down or what happened.
mo_dem @ 15:
Shoot! I was hoping it was Mark Penn and Burson-Marsteller.
ConcernedCanuck @ 19:
sky news reported she'd "stood down" could be wrong but thats what they said.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 7:
I'm a writer. You're absolutely right, except for one thing. The union just lost a lot of writers like myself.
Oh thank God their coming back we need new crap on TV and God knows these writers know how to write Crap. I could not care less if they ever came back.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 18:
The difference is that auto workers actually WORK. They don't get paid to sit at a computer and write sitcoms.
Also, autoworkers don't get residuals from the cars they make.
ffff @ 25:
So its OK that the corporate shareholders (who've produced nothing) get residuals, but they shouldn't have to share with those who created the product?
andy @ 21:
Ya, I'm not sure what spin they are putting on it, but it's no surprise. She was soundly beaten yesterday, and has to make a change whether she wants to or not. Oh I found it at:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UNMS182&show_article=1
fiver @ 26:
Shareholders invest, so in essence help pay the wages of the employees. Isn't that enough?
uncle joe mccarthy @ 18:
From what I understand as reported on television cable news (so not sure the truth) but some union writers have stated that the union basically caved to a deal offered weeks ago, so nothing was gained.
DA in LA @ 22:
how?
the vast majority of your brothers and sisters are gonna sign the deal on tuesday
from all reports, the vast majority of attendees at the meeting were only too happy with the results of the negotiations
i have heard no reports of a giant splinter within the ranks and apparently only one guy was angry enuf to walk out of the meeting
i still cant believe that to get to yesterday, you guys had to take dvd/blu-ray, animation, reality and most favored nation off the table
ffff @ 25:
a single car is sold from the factory one time
a movie or tv program is sold different times in its life, with all profits returning to the source
and auto workers do negotiate for residuals through health care and pension plans
and not sure you have noticed, but hollywood product is one of the few industries that havent been outsourced, and remains one of our largest exports
you may not like the product, but millions of people across the globe do
just watch the ratings of world viewers of the academy awards
ConcernedCanuck @ 28:
No, Canuck, I don't think it is. Wages might pay for an employees work, but the ten media corporations don't just want the work, they want the end result as their own intellectual property. Residuals are one method of purchasing that property.
if there are any sag members here, can you guys tell us how you feel about this agreement?
and if sag goes out at the end of june, will the wga honor its picket lines?
fiver @ 32:
I think what you are arguing and really what the union is arguing is wrong then. If what you say is the reasoning ( and I don't doubt it at all ) then the government will have to step in one way or another. No choice. It is the same as the music industry and the internet. There is no fix for it. Right now I can go download movies that were just released on video, or are currently playing in the theater. How do you stop that? You can't, so an industry saying they want rights to it forever, just doesn't work. If I do a job I get paid to do it. My boss gets the credit. Ten years down the road, nobody remembers that I did it, and I don't get more money for it. People will remember my boss' company did it though. I see it all the time. That is what happens when you don't own the business.
ffff @ 9:
Looks like we have taken a similar journey..
And while we are not the only ones... it would sure be nice if there were way more of us.
:D
I hope the writers strike goes on forever bankrupting the corporations that have been filling our citizens will utter bullshit...and forcing the emerging corporate media behemoth back into the foul hell where it belongs...
Perhaps the legions of light addicts will wake the fuck up and really do something to save the nation and the species...
And so should all of you...
rduke @ 35:
i think you are forgetting that the strike also effected films like "there will be blood" and shows like "the wire" from being made
both are great social and political commentaries that should be watched by many
uncle joe mccarthy @ 31:
Just like I predicted months ago. The strike is being settled right after Super Tuesday. The corporate powers did their best to silence the satirists in their effort to manipulate the primaries.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 30:
And you won't hear about it. But many writers who don't work in network tv got screwed.
Most of my friends (cable and late night) are done with this union. We're not going to be loud about it, but we're done.
'bout time. I'll be happy to see the Daily Show/Colbert Report segments here again...props to C&L for keeping it real.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 33:
I'm a member of both guilds. SAG thinks the deal is okay.
WGA cannot honor SAG picket lines. All our contracts specifically are worded so the guilds cannot honor each others picket lines.
DA in LA @ 39:
well, its gonna leak out sooner or later and is gonna put a crimp in the unions negotiating power come 2012
wish you guys had spoken out more forcefully during the past 3 months
DA in LA @ 39:
btw, do you work for maher? cuz im sure he gets alot of stuff from this blog
and boy was he pissy during the strike
uncle joe mccarthy @ 42:
We didn't know we were getting screwed until last night.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 43:
No. I know some of his writers. They were not very happy with some of the things he said during the strike.
DA in LA @ 44:
i was wondering why they were keeping the contents of the agreement hush, hush until the final moments
Did the whiners get their deal so they can continue to write garbage? Woo. Hoo.
JohnnyBravo @ 47:
...
Anywayzzzzz, DA in LA, that sucks! I wish the best for you. On one hand, I'm happy for the resolved situation, but on the other, it's terrible to hear that the Union that was standing up to a corrupt system might not be as squeaky-clean as we all thought.
JohnnyBravo @ 47:
Well, it's not as big of an achievement of being a troll on a website, but we did, yes.
DA in LA @ 49:
i just read the interim agreement, and you guys pulled alot off the table, including the right to honor other unions strikes
and i understand why you guys are pissed
and forget the trolls and the elitests, they dont realize that it writers dont write garbage because they want to, its because many times they have to
unless you are friedberg and seltzer, and then its cuz you want to
Too bad factory and IT workers didn't have the same support when millions of their jobs got zapped to cheap-labor shitholes.
PassedPawn @ 51:
you are right...but lots of IT people (including me) didnt have a union to support them
neither did many factory workers
and we all stuck our heads in the sand hoping it would get better
man, there's just too much crap on this thread to respond to.
hey, it ain't just the writers who suffered during this strike, the strike took billions of dollars out of the california economy.
folks not in the union, below the line folks like make up people, casting people, grips, lighting technicians, sound technicians, caterers, etc. i was in a restaurant the other day and the waitress was telling me that the business at her restaurant had dropped noticably.
and someone upthread put it well...the product the writers create is sold hundreds of times over, and the producers were threatening to not pay the writers for those sales on any new (ie, digital; internet, downloads, mp3, etc) usage. zero dollars. that was the amptp (studio's) offer, and it was the amptp who walked away (twice) from the negotiations.
you don't watch tv? fine. pick your medal up on your way off this mortal coil. millions, if not billions, of people, enjoy the stories the writers churn out, and not just for tv, for movies too. and it ain't like the writers sit down to purposely write drek. they'd love to write thick, complex, challenging, interesting stuff. but the studios, the execs, are the ones who continuously stick their fingers in, giving "note" for "rewrites," often based on nothing more than indigestion or crankiness.
you think it's drek? you try doing it. seriously. you sound like those people who try out for american idol and are told they are terrible by simon cowel. it ain't as easy as it looks. putting together an interesting story that someone else, let alone millions of someone elses, might want to watch, is incredibly difficult.
anyone who disses the creative mind are those that couldn't create if their lives depended on it.
more:
i know somone who writes on a reality show, and while he's disappointed reality got taken off the table, he's not surprised or even angry. like me, he thought there was too much on the table to start with, and you always enter the negotations asking for more than you expect to honestly get, so you can take something away, to make the other side think you're compromising. it's called negotiations.
you think patric veronne, the prez of the wga, who himself is an animation writer, is happy they took animation off the table? it's a compromise, nobody gets everything they wanted.
remember, the studios wanted to pay absolutely zero for reruns on the internet. they lost that battle.
and everybody expects the internet to be the distribution system of choice within 5 years time (personally, i think it's 3 years).
sure, every guild in hollywood wishes we could strike all together. we all have no strike clauses in our contracts. that's how it has been forever, as much as i know. but this year, at least with the screen actors guild standing shoulder to shoulder w/the wga, the golden globes were killed, the grammies were threatened and the oscars were in real danger of getting cancelled. that's when the studios knew we were all serious.
i'm not in the wga, but i'm a proud sag member of over 20 years. and a tiny majority of us in both unions make any sort of big money. most writers and actors are lucky to make $30,000 a year. the majority of writers in the guild average $5,000 a year, and actors, even less.
so you don't think what we did was worth it, or got results? fine. it's hard for me to think that commenting on blogs is any sort of higher calling than watching tv, tho. unless you're out feeding the homeless in soup kitchen, or tending aids patients in a hospice, or building orphanages, spare me your holier than thou "tv is beneath me" crap.
the writers (and actors) worked hard against huge multi-billion dollar corporations who were out to screw the middle class out of their hard-fought gains from years gone by. the writers-producers fight is only reflective of what's happening all over in america as a handful of super-rich execs scheme to find more ways to keep the money out of the hands of middle class and lower class americans.
so if you poo=poo that fight, fine with me. just don't try to hold yourself up as any sort of progressive.
skippy @ 54:
hope you dont think i was poo-pooing your fight, or the strike....i just think you guys took way too much off the table
for example, you mention "reruns on the net" but the concept of reruns on the net just doesnt exist....
are the studios going to archive their libraries? is there a plan to do so?
and i was one of those periferal guys who got hit hard during the strike.
i do alot of tech work for independent companies, photogs and writers and my phone just stopped ringing (stupid me, i shoulda listed my biz on the wga site and taken work on spec...but oh well)
and i think alot of people dont understand that it isnt always the best writers who make the big bucks....one of my clients is an excellent writer, but has a hard time because she doesnt write commercial enough
oh, and if you havent gone to variety's site yet, you might be interested in this quote...its a bit humorous
Perhaps the most surprising and salient observation I've heard from either side came from the CEOs of one of the Big Seven members of the AMPTP. In this town, it's all about relationships and trust. It's a cliche, fer sure, but it's true. To wit:
"We'll never know" if the strike could have realistically been avoided, the honcho said. "I hope there are no lingering bad feelings. We want them to feel good about what they struck for and what they got. And let's keep a conversation going (outside of contract negotiations). If there's an issue that comes up, we can correct it midstream. Not everything has to be done in a (formal) contract negotiations. Let's have a level of trust that exists between us so that we don't get back into one of these all-or-nothing situations."
funny, huh?
oh and rip roy scheider....
skippy @ 53:
i would just like to add one comment
i know things were getting hard for the people on the line, but wouldnt your bargaining power have increased if the studios were woried about getting the fall pilots going?
i mean they need these shows to present at their affiliates and we are talking even more millions lost if they have nothing to show.
and i truly respect the writer...all writers
and its kind of funny that people who have tossed their tv's show up on a blog that made its bones posting clips from tv shows and then flame those that write for that medium
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