Friday, December 14, 2007

The WGA Letter That Should Have Been...

Yesterday, Patric Verrone put out a letter to the WGA membership advising them that he has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.  He continued slinging mud at the AMPTP, which, though we share his disdain for the AMPTP, gets us nowhere.

Here's the release I would have preferred to see:

December 13, 2007

To My Fellow Members:

As you know the AMPTP walked out of negotiations within hours of requesting the unilateral removal of several provisions of our contract. We were in the middle of preparing a counter-proposal that would have addressed most of their concerns, but we were not and are not prepared to remove items from our proposal merely in exchange for the privilege of negotiating.

As we have repeatedly said, however, we remain committed to negotiating and we wish to resolve the strike as soon as possible.

To that end, earlier today we delivered to Mediator Bryan Lourd our latest proposal with instructions that he deliver it to the AMPTP Negotiating Committee.

While we prefer not to negotiate the details of our contract in public, I wish to assure you that this proposal addresses each of the AMPTP's demands individually and separately, and does so in a manner that is fair to both sides.

We believe that our latest proposal, which also includes revised numbers to the new media payment schedule proposed by the AMPTP, continues to address the goals which are most important to our Membership, while allowing the AMPTP financial feasibility and maneuverability in this exciting, but constantly changing, new world.

It is our sincere hope that the AMPTP will resume negotiations immediately, as we continue to work towards a strike resolution which could see all of Hollywood returning to work in the New Year.

Again, we prefer to keep the details of this proposal between the two Negotiating Committees for the time being, but rest assured that the full proposal will be immediately available to you should leaks about individual elements of the proposal suddenly start appearing on the internet or the press.

In the meantime, I urge everyone to continue to stay strong and unified. We will get a great contract at the end of this difficult time.

Best,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGA West


Now THAT would have been nice...

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