Seems with strike negotiations at an impasse (dead), the WGA and AMPTP have taken to more open letters to each other and the entertainment industry as a whole. Just before Christmas, the AMPTP’s website hosted an open letter signed by studio and network execs with the tagline, “Different Assets…Different Businesses…Different Companies…One Common Goal…To Reach A Fair and Just Agreement With Writers And Get Back To Work.”
The co-signers included Peter Chernin, Fox Group CEO; Brad Grey, Paramount Pictures CEO; Bob Iger, Disney CEO; Michael Lynton, Sony Pictures CEO; Barry Meyer, Warner Bros. CEO; Leslie Moonves, CBS CEO; Harry Sloan, MGM CEO and Jeff Zucker, NBCU CEO.
The letter includes the following: “In short, our report to you on the State of the Strike is really very simple: The WGA’s insistence on these jurisdictional and other unrealistic demands is preventing us from reaching a deal that is fair and reasonable to both sides. And nothing in the WGA’s new grab-bag of tactics – a hodgepodge of continued street demonstrations, baseless NLRB complaints, and ephemeral interim agreements with individual companies – is going to change this situation. Until those in charge at the WGA decide to focus on the core financial issues that working writers care most about, instead of the unreasonable jurisdictional demands that only people who run unions care about, we do not see that there is any basis for reaching an agreement.”
Read it in full here:
The strike called by the WGA is fast approaching the two-month mark, and already tens of thousands of workers who have no stake in this dispute are either out of work or facing grim prospects in the New Year. The WGA’s organizers are indeed making good on their promise that they would wreak “havoc” on our industry. As a result, the traditionally festive holiday season for our business has instead been shrouded by uncertainty and concern for the future.
In the midst of the hourly drumbeat of news about the WGA’s strike, it is important that we all take a step back and review exactly how our industry reached the situation we now face on the eve of the holidays. First, it is important to remember that the WGA called the strike and asked writers to walk out on November 5th. They had the right to do so, but no right to avoid responsibility for the consequences. Second, the negotiations between the AMPTP and the WGA are at an impasse because the WGA has continued to press a series of unreasonable demands that have nothing to do with new media and the real concerns of most working writers. These WGA-constructed roadblocks to progress include:
Reality Television
The WGA seeks to obtain blanket jurisdiction over reality programs through its top-down organizing tactics, and thereby deprive these employees of their free choice to elect union coverage under the voting system administered by the National Labor Relations Board. The AMPTP has asked the WGA to withdraw this demand.
Animation
The WGA seeks to obtain, once again by top-down organizing tactics, jurisdiction over animation writers who traditionally fall under IATSE’s jurisdiction, and to deprive those writers of their free choice to elect union coverage under the voting system administered by the National Labor Relations Board. The AMPTP has asked the WGA to withdraw this demand.
Sympathy Strikes
The WGA seeks the right to go on strike, at any time, in support of another labor organization’s strike, and thereby disrupt production whenever they want. Any agreement reached must assure uninterrupted labor peace during the term of the agreement.
In short, our report to you on the State of the Strike is really very simple: The WGA’s insistence on these jurisdictional and other unrealistic demands is preventing us from reaching a deal that is fair and reasonable to both sides. And nothing in the WGA’s new grab-bag of tactics – a hodgepodge of continued street demonstrations, baseless NLRB complaints, and ephemeral interim agreements with individual companies – is going to change this situation. Until those in charge at the WGA decide to focus on the core financial issues that working writers care most about, instead of the unreasonable jurisdictional demands that only people who run unions care about, we do not see that there is any basis for reaching an agreement.
As we all reflect on this situation over the holiday week, we can all hold hope that when the New Year dawns so too will the realization by the WGA that the best interests of working writers are not served by allowing extraneous demands to block progress on fundamental, bread-and-butter issues that are surely at the heart of working writers’ concerns.
TVBR observation: The two sides need to get back to the table as soon as the New Year begins and get this resolved. Our suggestion: The WGA picks two folks who they want to do business with on the AMPTP side and vice-versa. Focus on only the most important original core issues to get the contracts signed. Start with meeting each other half-way on the numbers. The other issues can be negotiated six months later, as part of the new contract wording. Get the big issues solved and get these folks back to work. We’re in danger of messing up an entire industry here and ruining hundreds and hundreds of careers. Time is now ticking more quickly than ever.
So bottom line: Get new negotiators. Have them meet at a resort hotel somewhere over a long weekend out of town—i.e. The Gainey Ranch Resort in Scottsdale—and don’t forget the Blackberry chargers. Eat all meals together, negotiate the rest of the time. Go golfing there if it helps, but set a deadline—arrive Friday morning, contracts signed by 10PM Sunday. Something different…Anything.
