Hollywood strikes happen when tech companies get too powerful - The Washington Post
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A lifetime ago (actually, in the 1990s and early 2000s), I worked as a labor and employment lawyer for a series of Hollywood studios. Much of the job involved sitting at negotiating tables with other studios’ labor negotiators to hammer out deals with the dizzying assortment of unions who make TV shows and movies — including SAG-AFTRA (actors), WGA (writers), Teamsters (drivers), IATSE (crew) and DGA (directors). It has, therefore, been painful to watch the writers’ guild strike drag on, only to be followed now by an actors strike, knowing that it all affects thousands of people’s livelihoods. With both unions out, whatever remaining productions were still shooting have come to a halt.
This past Tuesday, there had been a ray of hope. Following a series of calls from studio executives, the parties brought a federal mediator into talks over the actors’ contract. Variety reported: “In addition to the executives discussing efforts to bring in a federal mediator, talent agency chieftains … have reached out to SAG-AFTRA leaders in recent days to offer assistance that could stave off a second Hollywood work stoppage this summer.” However, by leaking word of their intervention before the union was notified, studio executives managed to further anger the actors.
It was reassuring to see some executives evince interest in the negotiations, given fear in both unions that the studios simply want to wait them out. The studios repudiated an anonymous source who told Deadline: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”
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This sort of talk reflects how the dynamics of the business have changed over past 15 years or so. The large companies that dominate the industry have become much larger through mergers and consolidation (e.g., Disney bought Fox; Comcast swallowed Universal). Moreover, big tech companies — such as Apple, Netflix, Amazon (whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Post) — that now produce TV and movies are sitting at the bargaining table.
Once upon a time, the studios were forced to divest themselves of movie theaters on the grounds that they were vertical monopolies. That’s ancient history now.
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For these conglomerates, the production of entertainment/content might be a sliver of their overall business. Apple is a consumer-product giant; Amazon a retail behemoth. Comcast is one of the country’s largest multinational telecommunications firms. That has created a massive imbalance in bargaining power, and therein lies the problems for workers — writers, actors and others — who fear these giant companies have the wherewithal to wait them out.
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If politicians years ago had taken a tougher stance on market consolidation and vertical monopolies (remember, Apple makes computers and cellphones, provides Apple TV and produces the content) and subjected tech companies to reasonable regulation, consumers and workers would be in a different position. Now, beleaguered writers and actors are feeling the impact of dereliction from both political parties. If some banks are “too big to fail,” these companies might be “too big to successfully strike.”
In truth, if you are not in the room with the negotiators, and do not have access to the same data, it is extremely difficult to determine which side needs a reality check, although the studios took the unusual step of releasing their last offer to SAG-AFTRA, which on its face appears quite generous and specifically addresses artificial intelligence. However, I know enough from being in that room for many years that, after days of talks and exchanged proposals, both sides think the other is behaving irresponsibly.
Certainly, the big issues — including AI usage, staffing for writers and streaming residuals — look very different depending on which side of the table you sit. For the companies, the ability to eliminate cost (i.e., eliminate workers), unfettered access to new technology and the constant pressure to keep stock prices high are critical concerns. A lack of reliable revenue from new streaming businesses (many of which report losses) creates a frenzy to keep costs, including labor, low. The studios claim that a radical SAG-AFTRA faction has made progress impossible and have expressed frustration that the actors refuse to prioritize items on their long list of demands.
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For the actors and writers, the view is different. The need for a decent standard of living in expensive Southern California and opportunities to have a continued presence in their creative endeavors drive their demands. And they feel time is running out as AI improves by leaps and bounds. (When the contracts last expired, the pandemic was raging; having curbed some demands then, unions are now anxious to catch up with industry trends and advances in AI.)
If you are a worker in some other industry, it’s tempting to look upon Hollywood “talent” as spoiled and privileged. However, the large majority of union members are not stars with mega-salaries. Their problems are not so different from those of ordinary workers.
In tracking the upsurge in work stoppages in Southern California, the New York Times recently reported that teachers and school employees, dock workers and hotel employees — just like journeymen actors and writers — all face the “unbearable cost of living in Southern California.” The struggle for wages that keep pace with the cost of living will be played out on picket lines throughout the area. And it is not just actors and writers whose “jobs have been threatened by the rise of artificial intelligence and the gig economy.”
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Nelson Lichtenstein, who directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara, told the Times: “There’s a new sense of commonality between the retail clerk who is being told to come in every other day from 3 to 7 p.m. and the screenwriter who is suddenly being offered seven episodes to write and then, goodbye.”
Faced with giant corporations determined to show bigger profits each quarter, writers and actors have their backs to the wall. Therein lies a warning for the rest of the American workforce.
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Source: The Washington Post
