Friday, October 5, 2007

From the E-Mailbag...

I've received a number of questions about the possible (probable, I think) Writers Guild strike. I'll try and answer them all here over the next few days, starting with this one from Al D'Abruzzo...

What kind of solidarity do you think the WGA will have this time if it strikes? It seems to me that in the past, WGA strikes have been a circular firing squad where the companies didn't have to break the union's will. They could count on the union doing that.

Yes and no. In the 1985 strike, the looming issue was payment for home video sales of our work and it got ugly. In an earlier contract, we'd made a terrific deal in the then-new area of video cassettes. It was so good that the Producers had decided to not honor it and to suggest the terms of that deal were actually different from what had been agreed to on paper. When the WGA threatened to go to court, the A.M.P.T.P. said, in effect, "No, let's just address the matter in the '85 contract negotiations." So their big proposal in that contract was that we would agree to accept their new interpretation of the earlier home video deal instead of standing by its terms as written and suing to enforce them.

We had a faction within the Guild that insisted that there would never be any "real" money in that arena — or if so, it would only be for the guys who wrote the biggest hit movies, not for 98% of the WGA. Their argument was that it would be foolish and maybe immoral for the entire Guild to go on strike over that issue. This view was held by nowhere near a majority but its advocates were numerous enough (and loud enough) to rupture WGA solidarity and to convince the Producers that if they just sat tight on the core of their rotten "final offer" — improving it only in slight, meaningless ways — we'd eventually fold and take it. Which we did. Our leadership that year, I'm afraid, gave off the aura of not knowing what the hell they were doing so a lot of writers who wanted to fight this one to the death reluctantly threw in the terrycloth.

In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious that by giving up the old home video agreement and accepting the Producers' redefinition of it, the WGA made one of the rottenest deals in the history of rotten deals. Many who were in that no-strike mob today swear they never held the positions that I recall them holding in '85 and I think some of them even believe it. It's kind of like, "Who me? Oh no, I never thought home video would be a passing fad. You must have me confused with some other short-sighted, foolish writer."

Almost as bad as the money and clout we lost with that giveback was that we set ourselves up for a disaster with the next contract, which was in 1988. As I mentioned in an earlier message, one of the problems we have in dealing with the A.M.P.T.P. is that they have an enormous problem improving their own offers. It's an alliance of all the big studios — Sony, Time Warner, Disney, etc. — and if they come in way too low, it can take them months to agree among themselves on a meaningful increase — plus, of course, they don't like to create the precedent of not sticking with a lowball offer. In '88, they more or less repeated their winning strategy of '85, which was to refuse to address our demands at all. Instead, only minutes before the old deal expired, they handed up their "first, final and only" offer, which was a mess of rollbacks and lowered minimums, and we had two choices: Accept it or go on strike.

That year, the Producers expected a strike and, of course, got one. But where they were wrong was that they predicted we'd crater in a week or two, as we had in '85. We'd start bickering again, they figured. Then they could come in and make some minor, pre-planned improvements in the deal, raising it from Really, Really Terrible to merely Really Terrible...and we'd grab it. Where they'd miscalculated — and the reason we had a five-month strike that year — was that they hadn't realized that the WGA of 1988 was not the WGA of 1985. We had smarter, saner leadership and we also had a lot of members who'd learned from '85 and were determined not to make that mistake again.

So we held out. The Producers were stuck with an unacceptable offer out on the table — one I'm sure they soon wished had been higher because they lost an awful lot of money as a result of that strike. They ultimately lost a lot more than they'd expected to make off their proposed rollbacks. It was rough on us too but it also wasn't like we had a lot of options. If we'd taken that lousy offer, not only would we have lost even more but the Producers would have just come back three years later with yet another crummy offer that presumed we'd surrender easily. If you're not going to get reamed in a negotiation, you at some point have to convince the other side that you can and will walk, rather than take a bad deal. 1988 was when we proved that and I'm convinced it's the reason there hasn't been a WGA strike since.

Currently in Hollywood, there's a "buzz" among all the major unions. In the seventies, there was a similar buzz that the new markets of cable TV and home video were opening up and that there had to be a meaningful way to compensate the folks who make the product — not just writers, directors and actors but other unions, as well — in that new financial environment. These days, the "buzz" says it's past time for deals that cover the many new markets that are emerging, plus a fairer share on DVDs and whatever come along soon to replace them. (New formats are coming, of course. As we all know, the whole premise of home video is to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger.)

I don't think anyone in the industry thinks that kind of sharing can be denied forever...but if it can be delayed until the next round of contracts or the one after, that's a few billion the studios can save. Ultimately, that's all this is about and unfortunately, it's a powerful incentive for the Producers to try the old lowball strategy again. If they can hold us down, they can hold the actors and directors and the many craft unions down, at least for a few more years. I sure hope the Producers don't make the same mistake they made in '88...because I don't think we're going to make the same one we made in '85.

• Posted at 12:24 PM · LINK

Richard Goldwater, R.I.P.

Richard Goldwater, President and Co-Publisher of Archie Comics, died last Tuesday. He was the son of John Goldwater who, together with partners Louis Silberkleit and Maurice Coyne, formed the company now known as Archie in the late thirties. (The firm was originally called MLJ Publications with those letters standing for Maurice, Louis and John. Archie Andrews debuted in 1941 and soon became so popular that the whole company was renamed in his honor.)

In the grand tradition of nepotism that ruled almost every comic book company from the forties through the sixties, Richard Goldwater went to work for his father's company around 1950, focusing primarily on editorial content. He was 14 or 15 years old at the time and by 1957, he'd assumed real editorial duties. In much the same way, Michael Silberkleit (son of Louis) joined the firm but he was more interested in the business end of things. In the early eighties, Richard Goldwater and Michael Silberkleit formally purchased Archie Comics, Inc. from their fathers, the interests of the Coyne family having been acquired some time earlier. Richard soon handed the main editor job to Victor Gorelick but remained involved in creative decisions.

I'm afraid I don't know a lot more than that about Richard Goldwater. I presume the company will put out some sort of obit/press release and that they'll have better information than I do and more of it. I'll post a link whenever there's something to link to.

• Posted at 11:54 AM · LINK

A Comment Before Bedtime

From the Washington Post...

U.S. military reports from the scene of the Sept. 16 shooting incident involving the security firm Blackwater USA indicate that its guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force against Iraqi civilians, according to a senior U.S. military official.

The reports came to light as an Interior Ministry official and five eyewitnesses described a second deadly shooting minutes after the incident in Nisoor Square. The same Blackwater security guards, after driving about 150 yards away from the square, fired into a crush of cars, killing one person and injuring two, the Iraqi official said.

Yeah, but they really hate us for our freedoms.

• Posted at 3:18 AM · LINK

Briefly Noted

Luke Foster wrote a nice article about our silly comic book, Groo the Wanderer. Some of you might want to give it a read.

• Posted at 1:56 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

This was one of those "goose flesh" television moments for me...the opening ceremony for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. As usual, a relay race of athletes carries the torch to the stadium and the organizers try to pick someone special to take the final handoff and light the cauldron that signifies the commencement of the competition. This clip runs a little over eight minutes and if you don't know who the final torch handler was, do yourself a favor. Take the time to watch the whole clip — that's Dick Enberg and Bob Costas narrating, I believe — and see if the finale doesn't give you a wonderful little tingle. It does that for me every time I watch it.

• Posted at 12:34 AM · LINK

October 6, 2007 • Current • October 4, 2007