As promised, part 2 of our post-strike analysis focuses on the strike as tactic. Was it necessary? Did it work? Should we do it again? Should we have done it at all?

I would have written this sooner, but Grand Theft Auto IV kind of got in the way. And yet, as I was completing a mission in which my assignment was to kill a bunch of construction workers on strike, I was reminded of this unfinished essay (more on GTA4 to come, including an appeal to its creative genius to consider going union…despite that nasty bit of business with those construction guys).

The most important question is the one that’s the toughest to answer. Did we need to strike?

Well, it’s not that tough. The answer is “no,” because I refuse to believe there is no set of circumstances that would have obviated our collective course of action. There’s a parallel universe where we didn’t strike and got the same deal or better. Has to be. But barring science fiction and the presumption of some impossible-to-foresee manner in which we had to avoid a strike…could we have?

Probably not.

There were three major factors that precipitated the strike.

The first was…let’s call it “history of bad AMPTP behavior.” The strikes of the 80’s and the DVD rollback led to an eventual peace, but it was a victor’s peace. We were humiliated by the loss, and it’s humiliation, more than the specifics, that created an untenable balance. It didn’t matter that we made gains in the early 2000’s (like our internet rental rate, which is better than the sell-through rate we just fought for). The bitter sting of the stick in the eye never went away, and any attempts to negotiate around it only made matters worse.

You could feel the rage simmering…at least, I could feel it when I was on the Board. Something needed to be done to exorcise the failure of the 80’s

The AMPTP, by the way, is entirely to blame for this. Rage in reaction to humiliation is not only human, it’s appropriate. I’m no peacenik. If you best me in an unsportsmanlike way and make me look bad, my rage is a gift from the millions of years of humans before me, and I’m gonna use it.

The AMPTP should have understood this better, but they didn’t get it.

So…you have this history of bad blood generated by the AMPTP, and then the second factor is the rise of Patric Verrone.

Patric is a smart guy, but I also think he’s naive in many ways. I think he thinks he’s a pragmatic idealist, but he’s not. He’s a philosopher, and his philosophy was “oragnize, organize, organize.” Patric said many times that we were weak because we didn’t have enough jurisdiction.

Patric’s philosophy…to win a strike, you need to be stronger. To be stronger, you need reality television and animation. To win those, you need to attack the companies and shame them into conceding the jurisdiction.

This was a naive plan, bordering on a stupid plan, and it was also based on a faulty premise (our strength isn’t in our numbers, but in the quality of our membership.

Patric and crew began a series of corporate campaigns, wildcat strikes, street theater, lawsuits, disruptive protests and political lobbying designed to piss the companies off.

Which it did.

But that’s all it did. For all of his efforts, Patric organized fewer reality employees than the DGA did simply by being quiet and doing their DGA thing.

So, we have bad bood fomented by the AMPTP, we have Patric antagonizing the AMPTP to a point where they think he’s a nut…and then…we got the “counter offer.” Granted, we went in asking for a ridiculous laundry list, with numbers that made us look completely irrational, but so what? Chalk that up to dreamy dream dreams and get over it.

The AMPTP couldn’t. They fired back with a proposal to eliminate residuals, eliminate separated rights, establish their right of prima nocta…well, not the last one, but close enough.

That counter offer managed to confirm for WGA members what Patric had been saying all along: these guys were gonna try and take our lunch.

Time to fight.

Once the strike began, it seemed to me that you could classify WGA members into one of the following four basic groups.

The Militants were probably spoiling for a fight long before this one came along. Old guard militants feel like a punch in the face is the most likely thing to get us respect and results. New guard militants are what I call the “swirly-eyes gang,” infatuated with whatever Patric Verrone and David Young suggest is the path to success.

The Loyal Majority may have not been involved much in the union, but once the strike came, they picked up their arms and went to war. They marched, they stood fast, if they questioned leadership they did so very quietly, and they believed that the strike was very winnable…if only everyone would stick together and fight.

The Loyal Minority obeyed the strike rules, walked the picket lines and likely voted to authorize the strike, but they quickly grew concerned about the tactics of the leadership, the efficacy of the strike itself, and the demands the union was making…and weren’t afraid to talk about it.

Sneaks, Scabs n’ Quitters were the writers who cheated during the strike by writing or who didn’t cheat but opted to go ficore.

Now, there will always be militants, and there will always be sneaks, scabs and quitters. The former probably need therapy to address serious issues in their character, and the latter have no character to fix. But the largest group of writers will always be in that middle group.

One of the success stories of this strike is how that big middle kept itself together. Unlike strikes of the past, the skeptics never drifted into rebellion. Nor did the unionists slip into irrational zeal. By and large, everyone kept it together, and that’s a credit to the membership above all. Naturally, some people must engage in strike superiority. Tests of loyalty and so forth.

The hell with those people.

If you didn’t write and you followed the rules, I salute you.

For that reason, I look upon the strike of ‘08 as a mitigated success. We have a chance to go into ‘10 with more leverage than ever before, although it will take some serious changing. Still, we have a chance, and the cohesiveness of the membership has manifested that chance.

Mitigated, though, because many mistakes were made.

Out of naivety, I think, leadership believed they could pull a surprise attack. Catch ‘em with their planes on the ground, and declare victory over a stunned enemy.

We really have to stop thinking like this. Frankly, we have to stop thinking in terms of “beating” and “kicking corporate ass” and “winning the strike” and all that sort of nonsense. C’mon. This isn’t a movie. Here’s reality. The AMPTP can’t be “beaten” in any useful sense of the word, and even the most strident of us will still happily turn around months after the strike and take their money. Why not? That’s the deal, right? They pay, we work.

There’s never going to be a quick victory. As such, we should permanently eschew any tactics designed to get us one. Remember how the Teamsters were gonna back us? Lie. Total, bald-faced lie intended to flip the companies out and “force them” to the table. Oy. All that happened was that our bluff was called. There was no Teamster support (and by the way, I don’t judge the Teamsters on that one for a second).

The showrunners refusing to perform producing duties? Again, an attempt at the five finger palm of death. Again, this achieved nothing except unnecessarily exposing a number of our best and brightest to legal action (and perhaps worse…public reversals of their initial refusal to perform said producing duties).

Location picketing was another misfire, in my opinion. Many believed that it was part of the “by any means necessary” tactics required to end the strike and get a better deal, but the truth is that tactics like this will simply never work. All they did was continue to drive the other side into the arms of the DGA (more on that in a bit) and disrupt the production of writer’s work.

Here’s a fun fact (warning: the following is my opinion that I’m tarting up as fact). One of the best things to come out of the strike was the United Hollywood website, which managed to strike a balanced, positive and inclusive tone while still managing the work of cheerleading. I’m happy to be good friends with one of the founders, a buddy of another, and an all-around admirer of a third (who knows who she is, and I still think she should do what I said she should do, even though she won’t and I can’t blame her, but whatever).

What’s great about UH is that it comported itself with dignity. Yelling like a jackass in the middle of a taping of a talk show isn’t dignified. It’s also stupid and ineffective and oddly punitive, considering the hosts of all of the talk shows had to go back to work. But mostly…it’s embarrassing. It would be good to not do that ever again.

Anyway…

We have this possibility of leverage.

Here’s what we really need to do before ‘10 to convert it into gains.

We need…we really need……we reeeeeeeeeally really need…

…to start facing the reality of the DGA.

Yes, I tend to agree with those who say that the DGA made a better deal than they would have had we not struck.

No, that’s not a good strategy for the future. You don’t want to be the Guild that consistently puts its members out of work so that another union can dictate to the striking union what the terms of settlement ought to be.

That’s just a bad outcome.

Nonetheless, we are the bad cop and they are the good cop. No problem there. We need to work with Jay Roth and Michael Apted and the DGA. We need to settle the petty differences. That may require a different E.D. or a different President or both or neither.

Maybe everyone will smarten up.

SAG is clearly not the answer now, nor has it ever been, nor shall it ever be. SAG has managed to screw up unification with AFTRA not once but twice, and in the aftermath, bungled relations with AFTRA (called “a scumbag union” by Justine Bateman, board member of SAG and…diplomat…?) so completely that AFTRA decided to negotiate on its own after decades of joint bargaining with SAG. SAG is currently standing by with a dazed look on its face as AFTRA makes the DGA deal with the AMPTP. SAG still thinks they can get a better DVD deal. Good lord.

If Patric and whoever succeeds Patric and David Young can manage to get over their ideology (which has failed…okay?) and forge ties with the DGA, there’s nothing wrong with our union being the screaming crazies in the street…as long as it’s part of a greater bi-Guild strategy in which we are an equal partner.

I don’t ever want to see the WGA strike again unless our elected leaders and our appointed NegCom members are going to be the ones hammering out the terms in some capacity.

Look, we’ve proven we can strike and stick together, even if we disagree about tactics, even if the companies force majeure us, even if the strike lasts longer than we might have thought, even if the settlement isn’t what we thought we’d get or what we believed we were promised.

For that, I think we ought to demand some control over the outcome.

The DGA. We have to partner with them, or we are doomed to be fodder.

19 Comments »

I had been planning to write Part 2 of my somewhat premature retrospective on the strike, and in that essay (still forthcoming), I had intended to be somewhat complimentary.

Yup. And then…

…I, along with everyone in the WGAw and WGAE, received an email from Patric Verrone. You can read the full text of the letter here, but I’ll excerpt the worst of it below.

In the face of enormous personal and financial hardship on the part of many, you sacrificed in the knowledge that your refusal to work would reap benefits not only for yourselves but countless others in the creative community, now and in the future. Your stalwart resolve paid off. Yet among the many there were a puny few who chose to do otherwise, who consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good. Extreme exceptions to the rule, perhaps, but this handful of members who went financial core, resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of a union contract, must be held at arm’s length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are – strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk.

The letter goes on to link to a page with the names of all the writers who went FiCore during the strike. Not the writers who went FiCore before the strike…or the writers who’ve gone FiCore since the strike…just the ones that really piss Patric off.

You see, we’re all in this together…or else.

Now, if you adhered to the strike like I did or like every writer I know did, you feel a natural antipathy to people who didn’t. And yet, as a pragmatist, I must ask…if a handful of soap opera writers went FiCore (and they did)…well…so what?

Electing to become a financial core non-member is a legal right available to all union members, enshrined by a United States Supreme Court decision. It is as non-criminal an act as opting to become a union member. We don’t have to like it, but must we now publicly shame, humiliate and punish those who opted for this? To what end? What are we achieving here? Is this a warning to the rest of us? Or is it merely an opportunity to smugly shower the impassioned mob with traitor’s blood?

These writers were frightened and intimidated, no doubt, by their corporate employers. These writers have not made millions of dollars screenwriting like many of our WGAw Board Members. Nor have they made millions running television shows like many of our WGA Negotiating Committee Members. I do not approve of what they did, but I’ll be damned before I judge them and their circumstances without knowing them, their families or their extenuating circumstances.

No such scruples for the man who “sleeps the sleep of the just.” Here is Patric’s institutional declaration that these people are “puny.” Here is his demand that we “hold them at arm’s length” for all time.

If Patric could throw stones via email, no doubt they’d be whistling toward those daytime writers right now.

Nietzsche wrote, “Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.” Indeed. This letter is an unnecessary kick to the face of people whose punishment ought to be the weight of their own consciences. They pose no threat to us…unless, like Patric, you believe that any show of disloyalty is enough to bring the whole godforsaken house of cards down around us.

The word “blacklisting” keeps cropping up. There are obvious differences between this letter and the blacklists of the 50’s. The blacklists involved the government and prison. This ain’t that by a long shot. And yet, the public exposure, the thinly-veiled exhortation to not hire these people, the list of names and the accusation of disloyalty and treachery…made by the powerful against those making unpopular but legal choices (communism, ficore)…is born of the same human frailties that led to the blacklists of the 50’s.

Paranoia and fundamentalist zeal.

What an embarrassing and sad day for our union. This letter isn’t something that will destroy us. It’s just a stain. An ugly, unnecessary stain.

I’m not the only writer with a strong opinion about this letter. You can read John August’s thoughts here and Lee Goldberg’s here. I’ve also offered this space to others who wish to voice their feelings. Most have done so under their own names. A few were concerned about reprisals and wished their thoughts to be anonymous. Hard to blame them.

Their opinions are their opinions, just as mine are mine. I post them here, in the hopes that a public protest might achieve precisely what loyal opposition is intended to achieve: accountability and improvement.

---

That might be one of the creepiest emails I’ve ever received. I’m surprised a professional writer wrote it, much less the President of our guild. We’re blacklisting people now? Count me out. - Derek Haas

I guess our union isn’t really as strong as Patric and David have said it is. I guess the truth is, in order to hang together, we need to resort to small minded tactics to scare our membership into acting as one. Reasoned debate and tolerance for other opinions are now considered either weak or outright treasonous. Members exercise their legal rights and are singled out as traitors. Yet irresponsible plateheads make gross misstatements about our health coverage during the strike and go unpunished (while those who speak out are asked to leave). It’s sad that a mere 50 some years later, the WGA would be using the same tactics and rhetoric as HUAC. How does publishing this list help anything? It only hurts and makes us all look “puny.” - Scott Frank

Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, Dalton Trumbo. It was wrong then. It’s wrong now. - Greg Strangis

Patric and Michael are encouraging a blacklist of sorts. While they do not overtly ask the rest of us to avoid hiring or working with those writers who have gone fi-core, it is clear that their goal is to make it impossible for these individuals to stay employed. As someone who was on the picket lines, obeyed all strike rules, and put my pencil all the way down, in other words, as a guild member in good standing who sacrificed in all the ways I was asked, I find Patric and Michael’s letter totally offensive, embarrassing and without regard for context or history. Witch-hunts are always bad. Institutional witch-hunts always redound against the institution in the end. Let’s reject this ill-timed, ill-advised missive and move forward with a more united, hopeful and pragmatic guild. - Brian Koppelman

One might have suspected that Comrade Verrone - a comedy writer - would have been more sensitive to the irony of his guild, which through its Written By magazine so frequently reminds us of the dark days of McCarthyism, now taking such pleasure in the publication of its very own blacklist. - Gary Whitta

This is a goon move, another in a long line of dim thuggery that has come to define our guild. The insane righteousness of these bullies provide an interesting contrast to the limp, puny deal they managed to achieve. - Larry Doyle

Patrick and Michael, your recent email has given me the bends. I voted for the strike. I walked. I was “force majeured” out of my pilot—but always felt on the righteous side. When your choices of action were questioned, I’d take a moment to wonder if I could do better, and never felt certain I could. You were navigating so many fronts, with such high stakes… But this was easy. You don’t do this! At a time when we need to be creative and re-seed a barren landscape, you don’t try to aim us at those who chose to do something that is, in fact, legal. You don’t suddenly act in the vindictive style of the very people we were struggling against. I am not in THIS together with you. - Michael A. Ross

I feel like we’re being invited to set up stocks in the public square. Not writing for 100 days didn’t make me “courageous.” Nor did it empower me to peer into my fellow-writers’ souls and shun them for acts of conscience, whim, or desperation. - Brian Horiuchi

I know that a union has rules, and it must enforce them to be effective. However, the release of this list is not necessary to that effort, and instead seems only a petty, and pointless, act. In opting to go ficore, the listed writers were making a choice allowed under the WGA’s rules. It’s petty to publicly shame these few serial writers while many people who actively scabbed during the strike will go unpunished. Efforts to prove scabbing have little chance of being comprehensive or effective. Proof will be hard to come by. People were sneaky and in many cases left no paper trails. Most will get away with it. The WGA’s statement said that the daytime serial writers who went ficore are enjoying the gains from the strike without having had to suffer the pain of the work stoppage. But the WGA allowed many writers to go back to work during the strike under its interim agreements with various companies. Despite how the WGA tried to spin it, those agreements did not create leverage or pressure against the companies because they did not hold companies to the WGA’s proposed contract. They obligated the companies only to abide by a new agreement when one was reached. Writers under interim contracts went back to work while their WGA colleagues continued to suffer steep financial losses. They now enjoy the benefits of the strike without feeling the full losses that their fellow writers endured. It’s a strange and uneven justice that finds that situation acceptable but singles out the ficore serial writers for shunning. - Cheryl Heuton

Remember how the Guild refused to talk about Ficore during the strike? Dismissing it as a minor revolt by a few soap opera writers. Now screaming it from the heavens when it serves their purposes. - Don Rhymer

The recent decision by the WGAW and WGAE to publicize the names of WGA members who went financial core during the strike is appalling and shameful—and the most blatant example to date of how current Guild leadership attempts to achieve unity not through inspiration but intimidation. I was incredibly proud when I got my WGA card, but right now, I am embarrassed to be a member of a union that employs such reprehensible—and puny—tactics. - Denise P. Meyer

I’m not proud of these writers who abandoned their union in a time of figurative war. And I share in the frustration that they could do so with very little downside. But I don’t believe it’s the place of the guild to go out of their way to take the petty, vindictive, legally risky, morally dubious and historically tone deaf step of publishing an enemies list. These people didn’t make a dent in the guild’s ability to wage a work stoppage. Wouldn’t the smarter move have been to downplay their impact as negligible, rather than taking an action that suggests we were badly damaged by it? Lastly, if the goal is to discourage anyone from abandoning their union when it matters most, the comments here, on WA, on Nikki Finke, etc, suggest that this ill-advised move may have backfired, creating legions of members who suddenly find themselves questioning whether or not this leadership deserves their loyalty. It sucks that these writers went ficore. But at least, as they are stripped of voting rights, they no longer speak for me. Patric Verrone and the board the the WGAw, however, do speak for me. And I sure wish they could’ve been bigger about this. - Michael Gilvary

Long before I became a professional writer, I was aware of the fifties blacklist and the terrible impact it had on screenwriters. Long before I joined the WGA, I was aware of the Guild’s efforts to undo some of this damage by working to restore the names of blacklisted writers to many films of that era — and that work was one of the reasons I was proud to join the WGA. The day I joined, I felt I was in an organization that would fight against using a list to try to destroy careers—it never entered my mind that the Guild would someday create such a list itself. Today I’m just disgusted, amazed and ashamed that the WGA would stoop to such a tactic, betraying its own history and insulting the whole of the membership by suggesting they’d be willing to participate in this new “blacklist”. - Mike France

With apologies to Robert Bolt and T.E. Lawrence…So long as the WGA pits writer against writer, so long will they be a little union, a silly union - petty, barbarous, and cruel, as we are. - John Turman

I hope other, braver writers make wonderful points about that repugnant letter. For my own part, I’m worried that if I put my name, I’ll be in line for the next round of petty, pointless retaliation. - Anonymous

I was astonished to receive today Verrone’s directive to blacklist and ostracize those on his “enemies list”, to isolate them and bring them material harm. Going fi-core is not just their privilege but their right. Who is this Guild to sit in judgement of these people? Who among this list went fi-core out of financial hardship, having lost faith in Guild leadership and direction (and they were not alone, far from it) and who had children to feed? Who did not? Who knows for sure one way or the other? Verrone has turned this Guild into an organization of arrogant bullies. The attempt to intimidate and punish is sadly reminiscent of lists from another decade, of which we are all ashamed. And so I am ashamed of this action; I am ashamed of what this Guild has now come to represent: an organization that no longer protects its own, even if they disagree or stay, but is capable of eating and disowning its own. Like it or not, respect these fi-core writers’ decisions or not, they remain dues-paying members. Their inability to participate in any other way is isolation and punishment enough. Before today, I was not embarrassed to be a member of this Guild, which has good intentions, ambitions and purposes at its core. I disagree with much, even strongly, but embarrassment? Not yet. But I am embarrassed today. To those writers on that list, whatever their reasons, I apologize. And as for Verrone, he may like to claim — ad nauseum — on our behalf that we are all in this together. From today, he is wrong. In this, at least, count me out. This I want no part of. - Peter Landesman

I have served on a number of Guild committees, produced numerous events for the members (including three successful Writers Salons) and proudly supported my union throughout the strike - pencils down, no doubt. But this action crossed so many lines, I cannot continue to give my time to an administration with so little regard for its members. This morning, I resigned from all my committee activity. The decision was not between leaving those committees or not leaving, but between going financial core in protest or simply resigning all volunteer work until we have new leadership. It is not just this letter, it is everything it has represented about way this union has handled its business in the past year, from the call I got from my strike captain who knew I hadn’t mailed in my strike authorization vote yet (and for all I know, knew how I voted), to the wholesale distribution of members’ private contact info to other members throughout the strike, to the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” zeitgeist that was the very attitude that destroyed the reputation of our great nation worldwide. Just as I am not abandoning my country, but rather working from within the system to fix it, I will not abandon my union. It is a given that my resigning from two committees will not hurt Patric Verrone. If a hundred of me resign, it might; if a thousand, even better. A statement has to be made. This is not the union so many sacrificed so much to build. - Valerie Alexander

I wholeheartedly disagree with the choice of naming names of members going Fi-Core, and particularly take issue with the tone of Patric’s letter. I don’t understand how this is good for the WGA and while the WGA might possibly defend against the named assured lawsuits in a court of law, the court of moral authority will find all of us who make up the WGA guilty. If this was some kind of obtuse scare tactic to help SAG threaten their own members, it was not worth the price. Please cancel all my future issues of “Written By” that hail all the blacklisted writers of days gone by. The irony is too painful. - Michael Brandt

I can’t help but wonder: Why doesn’t the list include the names of everyone who went fi-core before leadership announced the strike was over? They no more shared in our adversity than those listed. But I guess leadership has no problem with them sharing in the victory of our new deal. True, a couple of them are high-profile, award-winning writer-directors-producers, but I can’t imagine that has anything to do with it. And if the list is intended to identify “strikebreakers”—those who went fi-core during the period we were ostensibly on strike against the AMPTP Companies in order to cross picket lines and work struck jobs—then why does it include the name of someone who works under the CBS Newswriters contract? Since the Guild was never on strike against the CBS News Division, how could anyone who works for them, fi-core or not, have crossed picket lines as a “strikebreaker”? Given Verrone and Winship’s own rationale for publicly identifying and disseminating the list, there’s no question that the selection of individuals on the list was arbitrary and discriminatory. Of course, the one thing all these people have in common is this: they dared to dissent with current leadership’s strategy for negotiating contracts, in the most effective way possible. And now they are being dragged around the public square, to be spat at and cursed by other writers, at leadership’s urging. Retaliation for the actions those members took during the 2007-2008 negotiation? Or warning to the rest of us in preparation for the strike of 2011? - Ted Elliott

71 Comments »

Perspective requires time. Has enough time passed since the end of the strike for a reasonably sober view of it all? Probably. There’s no doubt that more time still will be required to draw the most purposeful conclusions, but here’s an early attempt on my part.

If nothing else, it will give us all something to scoff out down the road if I turn out to be completely wrong.

The obvious question is “Did it work?” That’s a decent amalgam of “Did we win?” and “Was it worth it?”

Next week, I’ll take on the issue of the strike itself as a tactic, as well as the ramifications of our labor action. This week, let’s just start by looking at the deal itself.

There are those who think this deal is very good (John Wells), and there are those who think it’s the end of days (Justine Bateman of SAG and Harlan Ellison of the WGA). I imagine most people fall somewhere in the middle (because that’s how most people fall on most things, including our own leadership), but it’s fairly obvious that the majority of WGA members either leaned towards Wells’ viewpoint or felt that the deal was good enough to put the picket signs down and go back to work.

Let’s go through the terms.

Sales and Rental Residuals

The deal works well here. It’s not as good of a deal on New Media as we got in 2001, when Wells and McLean somehow managed to pull the 1.2% for internet rentals out of a hat without striking. That rate, which is the gold standard for residuals, is really the only significant rate right now if you’re a theatrical writer. A lot of people, including me, were convinced that internet rentals were a non-business, and the majority of the residual load would end up in internet sales.

Wrongo. Turns out the companies are rather jittery about selling movies outright on the web, because they’re freaked (justifiably) about piracy. They prefer to rent them via, say, iTunes. The Wells/McLean 1.2% on rentals is going to be lining our pockets for some time, so I salute them.

On the other hand, the sales rate resulting from Verrone/Young isn’t bad at all. Sure, it’s not the 1.2%, but after a reasonable amount of units are sold at the DVD rate, our percentage bumps up to roughly double the DVD rate.

Not bad at all. In fact, I’d call that very good. If this entire negotiation was predicated on the notion that DVDs would one day disappear, to be forever replaced by digital distribution, then quintupling the rental figure and nearly doubling the sales figure has to be viewed as strong progress.

There’s been a bit of hay made over the fact that our deal is now in terms of the total company gross, as opposed to the hated “producer’s gross.” That is, instead of saying we get 1.8% of 20% of 100% on initial internet sales, our deal now says that we get .36% of 100% on initial internet sales. Somehow, this is supposed to position us better and um, make us feel better, or……something.

Being a fan of math as I am, I could care less. They could have said we’re getting 180% of 2% of 100% or .036% of 1,000%. Who gives a damn? What’s the check gonna be? That’s all that matters.

Residuals for Streaming Media

This was the big one. How much would the companies pay writers when they reran television programming on the internet? The fear at the core of this issue was very real and very justified. There is a sense that internet reruns will someday replace network reruns entirely. It was critical to get this one right.

Did we?

I’ll go with a “yes, for now.”

Here’s how it works. When a network airs an episode of a show, they get 17 free days in which to run it on the internet without paying residuals (24 days if the show is in its first season). A lot of people hate this provision, and there’s certainly nothing nice to say about it. However, there is at least one mitigating factor. The 17 (or 24) days must be either immediately after the show’s run on the network or be running during it. That’s a clue as to how the companies may be planning on using this window. It’s likely that some of those free days will be used in advance of the initial airing of the episode, particularly for new shows. In other words, a week before an episode’s airing, the network may run a portion (or all) of the episode on the internet to generate some buzz or interest.

Once we get past the initial hump of the free window, the money kicks in. Sort of. Again, it’s not great, but it’s okay. The problem for the unions was one of calculation basis. When a company licenses its show for internet distribution, what does it get back?

Anything? Something? Nothing? All three of the above are currently true, and the fact that the production company is often licensing the show to another division of the same parent company only confuses things further.

The compromise was to go with a fixed residual for the first three years following the initial broadcast airing, then go to a percentage of license. For an hour-long program, the first three years will net a total residual of $4,262. Following that, the residual switches to 2% of whatever the license fee is.

Thanks to Steven Schwartz from the WGA NegCom for correcting me here. The compromise is to go with a fixed residual for the first year following initial broadcast, and then it’s a 2% of true gross after that. That fixed residual, however, increases each year of the contract’s life, so if that first year occurs in the third year of the contract, the fixed rate is higher than it would be if the first year were in the second year of the contract.

Silly mistake on my part.

Now, you may have heard that we improved upon the DGA deal for the third year of our contract. We did not. We get exactly what they get, down to the penny. The difference is the language. They went with a fixed number, whereas we went with a percentage of distributor’s gross…except we impute the distributor’s gross in the third year to be a number that gets us to the same fixed result the DGA got.

Why the linguistic rigamarole here? Well, it appears that the WGA felt this would position them better for future negotiations. Seems like wishful thinking to me. The number is the number.

Much has been made about the difference between these residuals and the network rerun residual. The first network rerun of an hourlong, for instance, is worth $20,000 in residuals for the writer. So…how can we possibly look at this new rate for the internet as a good thing?

There are two things to consider when comparing this apple to this orange. First, many, if not most hour long programs do not get network reruns. The ones that do are typically the hits. Even those reruns, however, are in danger. The networks are keenly aware that the rerun business is dying. As DVRs proliferate and audiences grow more accustomed to simply time-shifting the first run of a program, it becomes less and less profitable to run the rerun.

As such, it’s unlikely that the $20,000 vs. $1300 argument is a sound one. Most writers aren’t getting that $20,000.

Secondly, what this formula sacrifices up front, it potentially makes up for in the back. As shows are rebroadcast into the ground, the amount they pay out dwindles. Under the internet formula, library shows become potentially more valuable for the writers. The amount doesn’t dwindle. Rather, we have a set 2% of the gross of the license fee.

If (and this is a big IF) the license fees can be verified and held to market standards (and we have some provisions for this), writers can and will come out ahead in the long run…IF…and here’s the other big IF…

…IF streaming on the internet becomes a legitimate business.

The difficult truth is that we were all collectively guessing on this one. We guessed that this would become a legitimate and big business. Let’s pray we were right.

Jurisdiction

This one was the sleeping giant of this past negotiation. Without a guarantee of jurisidiction over made-for-internet programming, our union would have been seriously crippled heading into the future. It’s not that broadcast will ever go away (and for the record, if networks switch their distribution from satellites and airwaves to some kind of IP-based system, that doesn’t count…”internet” means stuff you watch in a browser), and movies will continue to run in theaters, but there’s every reason to believe that made-for-internet will become a viable business for the companies at some point.

We needed to automatically cover that work. And now we do.

Reality, Animation, DVDs

Zippo, zilch and squat. As predicted.

Conclusion

On its face alone, this is a good deal, and I was happy to assign my proxy to Patric Verrone and help ratify it. It’s not a perfect deal (was anyone expecting one?), it’s not a tragic loss (at least, not in the context of our 60+ year history), and it will serve as an okay basis for the next negotiation.

But…

…was it worth the strike? Was the strike necessary? Was it well-run? Could we have gotten this without a strike? And did we really get it at all? Stay tuned for part two.

You might be surprised by some of my answers.

36 Comments »

Well, that was a nice break!  I hope absence has made the heart grow fonder.  I know I missed all of you.

Sort of.  Some of you.

Tell your friends.  Door’s open.  Wait staff is on alert.  The Artful Writer is back.

Naturally, my next post will be about the strike, the deal, the aftermath and the future.  But before we all throw ourselves into that mosh pit again, let’s take a moment to enjoy the new-car smell in here.

As you can see, I’ve made a few changes, mostly cosmetic (with the help of web designer extraordinaire Sekimori).  For two years, our fluid three-column newspapery old-fashioned parchment n’ quill look served us well, but once I switched to WordPress, additional reconsiderations started to percolate.

This new design reflects some simple goals.  I wanted to refocus the site on the nuts and bolts of our craft and our business, and while the quill and parchment was a snarky way of saying “artful,” a lot of people weren’t quite getting it.  I think there was a sense that maybe Ted and I were partners in some Dickensian scribery, scratching away in ledgers about the affairs of the day while chewing bitterly on some crusty bread and stale cheese.

While I can’t discount the possibility that Ted will one day haunt me with chains and a scarf wrapped from jaw to skull, the new header is a bit truer, ya know?

The layout of the site has been significantly decluttered.  While I love fluid windows, the truth is that most blogs use fixed widths for a reason:  they’re neater.  Not gee-whiz neater, but aesthetically neater.  I find that fluid web sites are a bit like free-range chickens.  They’re free to roam, but they don’t want to.

I’ve cut way down on the amount of links I feature.  Nothing personal.  I just think blog rolls are useless.  I almost never follow links on blog rolls, so it stands to reason that I arrive at blogs the way I suspect most people do—through word of mouth or through aggregators (hence, the easy buttons at the end of this post which allow you to submit what I write to Digg, etc.).

The navbar is gone.  Many sites have useful navbars.  This wasn’t one of them.  My fault, really.  I thought it would prove popular, but I don’t think anyone ever bothered with it, and it was ugly to boot.

There’s a big honking post-it note inviting people to the Artful Forum.  Hard to miss now, I should think.

Most of the non-cosmetic changes will be invisible to you.  It’s a lot easier for me to compose posts now.  WordPress 2.5 just came out, and I’m impressed.  Finally, I have the ability to simply upload an image and start typing with text flowing around the image (and no code calling CSS required!).

Please take note of the simple “About” box to the right.  I used to link to my and Ted’s bios, but bios are boring, and no one really cares what town we live in or how many kids we have.  Also, I’ve tried to clarify just who the hell “The Artful Writer” is.

It ain’t me, okay?  And it ain’t Ted.  There is no one “Artful Writer.”

Now, to be fair, this is mostly my screwup.  I thought it would be obvious that a blog entitled “The Artful Writer” would be about the ideal of an artful writer, rather than the ideal of an arty writer that’s typically presented to us all.

Then people started accusing me of egotism.  Even worse, some people praised me for being “the artful writer.”

Ack!

I was naive to think this wouldn’t happen.  I remember listening to an interview with Barry Manilow when I was a kid (go ahead, draw your conclusions, I don’t care), and he was trying desperately to explain that “I Write The Songs” wasn’t about him, but rather an ode to the muse that did the real work.  So when he sang, “I am music, and I write the songs,” he wasn’t equating himself to music and then bragging about how he wrote songs that made the whole world sing.  He was singing as the character of “Music,” who naturally writes every song.

“Oh,” I thought.  ”Now I get it.”

And then I thought, “Oh.  Barry Manilow is an idiot for thinking people would get that.”

Now I’m the idiot.

Finally, a note about comments.

During the stormy days of the strike, I decided to shut comments down.  Things were getting ugly, to say the least.  In general, I like the concept of comments, but only in an ideal sense.  At its best, the comment section is a mature, thoughtful extension of whatever debate or issue I’m focusing on in the blog post.

At its worst, it’s a stupid, bleating pile of intellectual fraud populated by internet tough guys using a website to regulate their own emotional states.

We were landing somewhere in the middle there for a while, and that’s just not good enough.  I’m not interested in sponsoring bad conversations.  It reflects poorly on me, and I prefer if I’m solely responsible for the stuff that reflects poorly on me.

I am happy to say that I am reopening the comments section.

As before, you will need to register to comment.

I will be far more vigilant about unacceptable comments.  Simply put, be civil.

More simply put, don’t be a dick.

I insist upon a well-mannered discussion.  Yes, this is a stuffy restaurant.  Humor is welcome.  Strongly-held opinions are welcome.  Jerkery is not.  Life’s too short.  Nasty comments will disappear.  Comments complaining about how a comment disappeared will also disappear.

Okay, enough school-marming.  Go ahead and weigh in.  I hope you guys like the new design.  If you hate it, well…sorry.  :)  Good news?  I’ll probably change it again in a year or two.  We must all go kicking and screaming into the future.

It’s our lot.

31 Comments »

We’re shuttered here for a few weeks. Reasons? I’m tired, I have lots to say but don’t really feel like typing it all up right now, and I’ve got a major redesign to deal with.

As is my practice, I’ll return silently. No fanfare. Just check back in when April arrives (probably the second week). Then I’ll start things back up.

In the meantime, go outside, kiss someone, hug your kids and feed the dog. If that’s not interesting enough, then check out the Artful Forum.

No comments »

Well, this is fun!

I’ve got much much much backblogged up and ready to write, but I’m still a week and a half away from locking picture.  In the meantime, I go and read this story about our frequent commenter Ruairi Robinson, who’s been selected to direct the live-action version of Akira.

Very cool.

I love reading about good things happening to people who visit here and contribute positively to our community.

And yes, you’ll be getting that community back soon.  The strike turned our comments rather ugly and even worse…very very boring…but since I’ll be writing no more than one post-strike mortem and them moving on to other topics, I’ll be bringing back comments for sure.  Soon.

Anyway, that’s all.  Just wanted to salute one of our own with a heartfelt TETSUOOOOOOOOO……..

1 Comment »

One of the stranger moments to occur in the waning days of the strike was a reference by John Bowman to the “Dirty Thirty.”  The urban myth says that a meeting took place, awful things were threatened, but the Guild stood firm!

It sounded fishy to me when I first heard about it, because, well, it sounded fishy.

Howard Michael Gould, a member of our Negotiating Committee, sets the record straight, and does so importantly.  Unity is as important coming out as it is going in.

I’ll publish some sort of concluding comments about the strike in a week or so, but for now I give you the far more interesting (and unedited) Howard.

See you soon.

---

We have in the Guild our own demonology, mostly rooted in the fractious Eighties, with its legacies of the Union Blues, the hated home video rate, the DGA which settled too easily, and the devastating five-month strike of 1988 whose only triumph was that for nearly two decades both sides went to great lengths to avoid another one.

So as this year’s strike wore on, and as members tried to read the tea leaves and speculate on the negotiations (or lack thereof), helped little by a leadership and Negotiating Committee necessarily constrained in its candor, demons were invoked, analogs assumed, fears raised, anger stoked.  Much of this was probably unavoidable.  But as this all winds down and the first draft of history is being written, some clarifications are in order, toward understanding who we are as a Guild, what we accomplished and how we did it, and how much we have to build on going forward.

A good number of our members approached this round with a certain fatalism, a belief that no matter what we did, the DGA was going to make a deal first, and that we’d get the DGA’s deal.  It was assumed, too, that the DGA — historically strike-averse and willing to settle for less — would take “a bad deal.”  Of course, we on the Negotiating Committee and Board would tell members on the picket lines that we wouldn’t have to take their deal if we didn’t like it.  That was indeed true, but everyone knew that the strike would get immeasurably tougher if the DGA settled first.

In retrospect it’s clear that, unless we were willing to settle for a mere extension of the last contract, accepting the DVD rate on electronic sell-through and leaving all other new media issues tabled for another three years, the AMPTP was never going to negotiate seriously with us before they made a deal with the directors.

That put the DGA in a tough position.  They could take the kind of basic no-frills extension we were offered (perhaps with a most favored nations agreement which assured them new media jurisdiction and residuals comparable to ours, once we settled).  Or, they could do the harder thing, negotiate more aggressively than they’ve traditionally done, and try to land a deal good enough to provide an acceptable template for our own.  This latter choice would be highly complicated by the dysfunctional relationship between the two Guilds.  They had to be asking themselves, how much would the writers really want, or need, to settle?  Our Pattern of Demands, of course, was a high ask, and didn’t provide much of a clue.  Moreover, mistrust between the two leaderships precluded the WGA’s confiding in the DGA with any kind of acceptable “bottom line.”

Nonetheless, the DGA stepped up to the moment, used the power of our strike as leverage, bargained hard, and landed a better deal than we expected.

It can’t be emphasized enough that this year, the traditional, anticipated pattern was turned on its head.

This year, we didn’t get the DGA deal.  This year, the DGA got our deal.

All would be better if the relationship between the Guilds were healthier, and this should be a primary area of attention over the next few years.  For starters, we owe them a big, public thank you, which we’ve yet to give them.  They owe us one, too.

Anyhow, two days after the terms of the DGA deal were announced, the WGAw members of the Negotiating Committee met informally at John Bowman’s house, and agreed that we were moving into the endgame. There were still some things we’d need to negotiate beyond what the DGA had attained, but it was now clear to us that our strike had been a great success.

But we chose not to talk about that.  Whether because some of our leaders truly thought they had a shot at getting a lot more out of the studios, or whether they thought that any positive talk would undermine our chances of getting even the crucial smaller points we needed, or whether merely because of (understandably) bruised egos, the official word on the DGA deal was no word at all.

And in our deafening silence, the Guild began to polarize.

The more militant, weaned on the stories of past DGA sell-outs, assumed this to be another one.  At the same time, the more strike-weary, hungry for a way out, wanted us to embrace the deal without delay.  And our membership’s two edges began to get angry at one another.  You could feel it on websites like WriterAction, and you could feel it on the picket lines.

John Wells’s widely read internet piece in praise of the deal became one of the lightning rods for the polarization.  About this, a couple of things need to be said.  First, critics should compare Wells’s written comments about various deal points with John Bowman’s at the Shrine on Saturday; we on the inside didn’t love everything in the deal as much as Wells seemed to, but in truth we were satisfied with the great bulk of it, and just didn’t feel like we could say that yet.

Second, I spoke to Wells the day his e-mail hit the internet, and he explained to me why he supported the DGA deal as a basis for ours, and why he’d been willing to make that support public.  I’ll leave it to John to say more about all this himself, but it should be known that he was acting on principle and in what he deeply believed to be the best interests of writers.

(In a sort of parallel, those same things can and should be said about Board member Phil Alden Robinson, who, with the clock on salvaging the TV season ticking down, wrote a tough, militant piece for United Hollywood, scaring the bejeezus out of writers desperately hoping that a settlement was close at hand.  Like John, Phil explained his motives to me the next day.  I think that when more is known, both of these men will be widely appreciated for their contributions to this negotiation, and for their courage and willingness to brave personal vilification in the interest of bringing writers the best deal possible.  Both of these men deserve to be regarded as heroes of the Guild.)

The other lightening rod for polarization was the rampant rumor that, even before the DGA announced its deal, thirty A-list feature writers and showrunners had threatened to leave the Guild unless we accepted whatever the DGA negotiated.  Again, this played into the post-Eighties demonology: now our generation had its own dreaded Union Blues, selfishly determined to leave us screwed on the internet, just as we’d been screwed on VHS and DVD in the bad old days.

Only this time, it wasn’t true.

Because I’d come onto the Negotiating Committee as a rare, self-described “moderate,” and so retained some credibility with critics of leadership and of the strike, I’d fallen into a role as sort of a liason to them, someone who could make the case to them for the need to strike, and who could, when appropriate, voice their point of view internally as well.  Speaking from that vantage, I can say that the “thirty A-listers” rumor above was off base in three significant ways.

First, and most important, it wasn’t anything like the Union Blues of 1985: the “dissidents” of 2008 weren’t organized, and refrained until the end not only from public criticism, but from any private petitioning of leadership, for fear that even that would leak out and undermine the negotiation.

Second, there were far, far more than thirty.  If we’re counting writers who, after the DGA deal was announced, were angry at the thought that we might still blow up the TV season and wait for SAG to join up with us, then I heard personally from over one hundred.

Third, the people I heard from were not, for the most part, “A-listers.”  They were mostly writers at points in their careers where they were making (and sacrificing) a lot of money, but usually without the long histories of high earnings which gave them the wherewithal to withstand a lengthy strike.

It’s been too little talked about that while in some ways the strike appealed to our democracy and egalitarianism — we were all equal on the picket line — in other, crucial ways, the strike was not egalitarian at all: the real costs of the strike were not borne equally.  Not even close.

Some writers have been fortunate enough in their careers that three months without paychecks wouldn’t cause a material change in lifestyle.

For others — remember, over half the active, current members of the Guild are without WGA covered work at any given moment, and that doesn’t even count post-current or caucus members — the last three months of unemployment won’t be much different from the next three.

But for some writers in the middle, this strike threatened their homes and changed the ways their families would have to operate — real costs, hard costs.  It’s a painful irony that, even as we struck for middle class writers of the future, it was the middle class writers of the present who got clobbered hardest on their behalf.

And for all the many things we did well during this strike, it’s been a grievous failure of ours not to have acknowledged that, publicly and often.  We’ve rightly celebrated the people who worked for the strike, but we haven’t done nearly the same for the people who paid for the strike.

That recognition was absent Saturday night at the Shrine, and it’s been absent all along, and it’s inexcusable.

Which brings us back to one meeting in January, and the group which came to be called the “Dirty Thirty.”

In mid-January, at my own request, fellow Neg Comm member Robert King and I went to the home of a writer to talk with about three dozen members whom I’d heard were deeply unhappy with the strike and the leadership.  My primary hope was to keep them from doing anything public which would undermine the Guild’s negotiating strength.  My secondary hope was that Robert and I could provide a channel for them within the system, and to make sure they were heard, and felt heard.

A bunch of those writers had been force majeured out of their deals that very afternoon.  And listening to the way we had all been talking to the membership, it was not unreasonable for them to fear the possibility that what was, at that point, a ten-week strike could turn into eight months, at which time SAG would join us and the real strike would begin.  These writers were hurting already, and they were afraid, and they were angry.

It wasn’t the easiest afternoon for Robert and me.  But in the end, it was successful.  They now had a way of communicating with the Guild, and they didn’t take their grievances public.

Which is, ultimately, the point.  Because any discussion about “dissidents” in the strike of 2007-08 really ought to begin and end with this remarkable truth: when given the opportunity to be heard inside the Guild rather than outside, they chose that route, in almost all instances.  They wanted to influence the process, they wanted us to reach a settlement, but they wanted to make that influence felt in a way which would not compromise the Guild’s bargaining position.

Personally, I think the reason that was true this year, unlike 1985 or 1988, is that the cause was so just, so clearly important, that the few in the most extreme opposition to leadership realized that they weren’t going to find much traction among even relatively conservative members, who might under other circumstances speak out against a strike.

And this, by the way, was the deepest meaning of Patric Verrone’s fine battle-cry, “We’re all in this together.”

When you’re dealing with a large Guild of free-thinkers like ours, “unity” can’t be a matter of raising a small tent and telling everyone to stand under it.  It has to be about building a big tent, and finding room inside for all, from the writers who advocated the DGA deal before anyone had even heard it, to the writers who’ll vote no on the contract now because they feel we should have stayed out longer and demanded more.

I’ll confess that when I was asked to join the Negotiating Committee, I had doubts about our ability or even willingness to build that big tent, and to let everyone be heard, to “listen” as well as to “educate.”  In the end, though, I think we did it damned well.  And the happy result was the deal that we needed.

SAG played a role, and so did the DGA.  Militants played a role, and so did conservatives.  Strike captains played a role, and so did the middle-class, working writers who contributed perhaps more than anyone before they even came to the picket lines.  We were indeed all in it together.

Now, in the aftermath, let no one create false demons, or stories which suggest divisions like those which compromised our Guild in the past.

This time, we were better than that.

No comments »

The second act low-point has come and gone, the third act kicked into overdrive, conflicts have become consensus, and it’s time to shoot that last scene. The one where the big speech is given, someone slow claps, everyone starts joining in, and we all get to hug.

At the Shrine, no less!

There’s a deal in hand, and even though there’s no official word on it yet, the usual leaks paint what’s likely an accurate picture. It’s the DGA deal with at least one sweetener (a sunsetting of the flat-fee for streaming) and hopefully no serious writer-only downsides.

I’ve held off talking about…well, I’ve pretty much held off talking for weeks now. My intention here has always been to advance the common good as best I can, from my perspective as best I can see, with whatever argument is the best I can make. No more, no less. Once it appeared that our union had a chance to bring this strike down on the runway without splintering apart, then it seemed to me the best course of action was the shut the good sweet hell up and let leadership work it out with the other side in peace.

I emerge from that silence now to tell you all it’s time to get loud again. If you’ve supported leadership from the start, or if you’ve dissented from the start…go to the Shrine and speak up. Don’t let anyone shout you down, and don’t let anyone question your loyalty, your sanity, your commitment or the value of your membership.

If you’ve abided by the strike rules, if you’ve refrained from scabbing…then you have every right to be there, and I urge you to make yourselves heard.

Don’t be afraid to say something unpopular if you want.

Don’t be afraid if other people say things you think are crazy and wrong.

If the slogan of this strike is “we’re all in this together” then let that be your guide when you speak…and listen.

Now, here’s the irony.

I won’t be there. I want to be there, but due in no small part to the interim deal the Weinstein Company signed with the WGA, I’ll be shooting some additional scenes on Saturday well into the night. I will be there with you all in spirit, though…with those of you who have agreed with me, those of you who occasionally agree with me but occasionally think I’m out to lunch (that would be the vast majority I hear from), and those of you who equate me with Satan or, even worse, Nick Counter.

I’m okay with that. To steal a phrase from Patric Verrone, “I sleep the sleep of the just.” So if you’ve been sitting around with bottled up opinions, waiting to let leadership know how you feel…whether it’s deep love or frustrated anger or your own special blend of both (like mine)…this is the time to do it.

Do it respectfully, do it concisely, and above all…do it fearlessly.

You’ve earned it, writer.

1 Comment »

Yeah, well, I’m busy.

And honestly, there’s nothing to say right now.

I’ll be back if and when a deal is announced, but in no case before two weeks.  Expect this blog to be pretty dark for a month.

No comments »

That is all.

No comments »