A lot of folks in the movie and TV business are having a nervous Christmas owing to management/labor unrest. There's a tendency to only call it "labor unrest" and in this case, I think that's a misnomer. It's our unrest only in that we've been forced to take a stand, backed into a corner where a strike was unavoidable. This is my fifth Writers Guild strike and I honestly don't think any of them were avoidable. Some of them could perhaps have been fought earlier and been less bloody. Some of them could arguably have been fought later and been even more destructive.
But avoidable? Sorry to say, I don't think so…and I'm one of those folks who thinks the best way to win a fight is to not have it. Whenever possible, I like to sit down, discuss needs and differences of opinion and arrive at some set of creative solutions and compromises that gives everyone what they want/require. That is not, sad to say, an option that has been open to us in dealing with the AMPTP.
Our members understand this, which is why they've been so good about hanging together. People outside the WGA "get it," too. The other day, I had a long conversation with one of the men who's rebuilding my kitchen. He understood completely, and without me explaining it to him. He's had jobs where the employer kept chipping away at his income and benefits, counting on the fact that no one's going to up and change jobs over the little cutbacks. "Nibbled to death by evil ducklings" is how the worker put it. At some point though, the nibbles add up and become major bites…and that's when you have to say, "This stops now." In his case, he could quit one construction company and go to another one. We don't have quite that luxury. As a unit, they're all trying to hack away at the financial foundation of our profession so we have to quit them all at once. I wish there was another way.
Lately, they've been employing Scare Tactics. You know: The CEOs are so mad at us that they're willing to blow off not only the rest of this TV season but the one after, as well. In every one of the previous four strikes, we had those threats of burning down the factory, breaking the union, destroying our whole profession. It's never happened. Eventually, they have to make a deal with us, just as they have to make a deal with the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, neither of which is going to accept terms as rotten as the ones presented to us.
How and when this will end, I do not know. Despite all the rumors and games of Good Cop/Bad Cop being played, I still think the strike will end sooner than a lot of people think. I wish I was certain of that but all we can go by is logic and in this arena, illogical things tend to happen. I am pretty certain though that if we take a crappy deal this time, then in 2011 when the 2008 contract is up for renegotiation, they'll offer us a deal three times as crappy, take it or leave it…and we'll have to strike three times as long just to put a dent in it. At least.