Does the WGA have something up their sleeve? Or will the AMPTP ignore the Writers and concentrate on DGA?
Can this possibly end soon, or are we in for several more months of hardship?
Let the wisdom of crowds speak:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I would love to see the matter ended early, but the indications right now are that the AMPTP has no intention of talking to the WGA until they obediently withdraw the 6 conditions from the table. And the WGA doesn't seem to understand that their leverage is gone and is now on a mission to disrupt anything and everything they can about the current state of the business.
This puts any settlement at around May or June at the earliest. The AMPTP will absolutely go to the DGA as of the 7th of January, which will officially be announced by Wednesday or Thursday by both sides. This effectively shuts the WGA out of the story until the DGA talks are done, and means that the only thing they can do is continue to pound the table in frustration or have a tantrum somewhere else in public, such as the Golden Globes or the Oscars. When the DGA finishes making its contract at some point in March, the next logical step for the AMPTP will be to talk to SAG. And those talks will take another 2 months, leaving late May or early June as the next time for the WGA to get to the table, assuming that they take those 6 items off the table.
Assuming that the WGA capitulates in June, the rest of the industry can anticipate getting back to work by early July or so. If it takes longer for them to admit where they are, then it could be August, but that's about it.
This of course assumes that SAG will agree to the DGA terms.
I break it down like this:
Assuming for starters that the WGA does not try a radical move such as my cease-fire proposal, and instead that they just stay the course, then the DGA will get a contract first.
Let's say that happens by Feb 1. It could take longer, but let's be a little optimistic.
The pressure would be on the WGA, especially by feature writers, to use pattern bargaining to basically sign the same deal.
If they cave to that pressure, a deal could be done by March 1. I put the chances of that at about 15%.
If the Guild continues to fight for a hard-line, give-us-everything contract, the negotiation could drag out for several more months.
The issue is what would SAG do. So far, SAG has indicated support for WGA and has taken the stance that they won't talk with AMPTP until WGA deal is done.
But how long will that posturing hold? At some point, will they feel the same way as do the DGA -- namely that WGA is incapable of negotiating a deal? Or will they lay the blame at the feet of the AMPTP?
If SAG starts talks by April, they could get a contract before June 30 (the date their contract expires), and WGA would all but be forced to sign the same deal (which very well may be a deal that they are happy with).
I put the chances of this at about 30%.
Another pre-Summer resolution scenario is that WGA holds firm after the DGA, but that SAG also remains steadfast in not opening its own talks prior to a WGA resolution.
In this case, a deal could be struck sometime in late April or early May. This assumes that AMPTP still has some back-channel talks with SAG (to get assurances that a WGA deal will also cover SAG's concerns).
This also has the AMPTP looking forward to 2011, when the new contracts would expire, and not wanting WGA, DGA and SAG to expire at the same time (which really would set up a perfect storm strike).
I put the chances of this at about 25%.
So, I basically give us all a 70% chance of being out of this by June 30 (and also avoiding a SAG walkout).
But that also leaves a 30% chance that this will drag into Summer, with the Actors joining the Writers.
Of course, these percentages are basically just hunches...
Can anyone post the six points or conditions that the AMPTP wants the WGA to remove?
I remember the animation, reality, and sympathy strike but have trouble recallling the rest of them
I would like to see them all in print again so both sides can see if they are worth blocking the negotiations and the rest of us working. Just in the name of clarity.
TB
Here's how I see it, and I'm not very optimistic I'm afraid.
I think both sides hate each other so much, your proposal, as much sense as it makes, won't happen. I wish both sides would have just shut the f*** up from Day One, and maybe your plan would have been possible.
The way the DGA is going about this, is what I had in mind.
But the posturing, the grand statements that can't be taken away, the demands, the rollbacks, the walking away, have made that impossible.
Once the Spring Tv season implodes (probably 90 percent at this point in mid to late February), and with SAG right around the corner, I don't see any motivation for either side to settle until SAG has a contract. Which is again why striking in November hurt no one really except us, and extended everything 7 months longer than necessary.
WGA prepared their side for a long strike (wish we all knew that little tidbit a year ago), and it seems is being driven by tv writers. I think WGA is last to settle around early August, just in a nick of time for the Fall season.
Will feature writers change this course? I certainly hope so. It's going to take a massive effort on their part to change the views and bad feelings.
Even if the writers settle in May, June, or July, it will have no effect until months later for people like us. What a disaster.............. while the pissing match continues.
Transpo Bill,
The AMPTP "6 Points" are:
1) Fair Market Value - the WGA wants third-party oversight of deals between divisions of the same conglomerate (ie, Fox sells syndication rights to FX)
2) Reality - WGA wants to use this contract as an organization platform
3) Animation -WGA, again, wants to use this contract as an organization platform (note that many animation writers are already in an IA union)
4) Industry Standards - WGA wants the new MBA to apply to all written material, no matter the source (ie, no outsourcing to India)
5) Sympathy Strike - WGA wants to be allowed to sympathy strike with another union even if their contract is still valid
6) Distributors' Gross - WGA wants new media percentages to be based on the distributor's gross income, not the producer's gross income.
I believe the WGA will try to hold firm after the DGA contract is completed. It is likely that the AMPTP will publicly say in March that they're willing to talk to the writers again, once they pull the 6 items off the table like they were told on December 7th. The WGA will respond only with further statements of picketing and protesting. AMPTP will turn to SAG with that in hand, and SAG will be put in the position of trying to make a deal since the WGA won't be reasonable.
Once the SAG deal is done, the only question left will be how long the WGA will be able to hold out before they take the items off the table and sign the deal, which will be effectively what was on the table back in December. And after the WGA finally capitulates, the real fun will begin, as people inside and outside that guild go after them for striking for so long to achieve so little.
The 6 items the AMPTP finally said needed to be pulled are:
1. Reality TV - WGA wants jurisdiction over reality programs and wants the networks to have all reality shows come under the WGA MBA.
2. Animation - WGA wants jurisdiction over animation writers. There is a dispute about this, as IA covers animators, but WGA does cover some animated shows. WGA proponents say they just want the people who aren't covered by either side yet. IA wants to cover those people. AMPTP says that WGA is trying to get jurisdiction by putting it in a contract rather than organizing it at the ground level.
3. Industry Standards - WGA wants to make sure production companies aren't subcontracting with non-union providers. The AMPTP has rejected this as they say it limits who they could do business with, and they won't allow that in a contract.
4. No Strike Clause - WGA wants to effectively remove this clause, allowing them to go on sympathy strikes. Since even the Teamsters can't get rid of this one, it's hard to believe the WGA will suddenly be able to do it now. WGA could have asked for the conscience clause the Teamsters do have, but they didn't.
5. Fair Market - WGA wants the value of the internet proceeds to be independently arbitrated. AMPTP doesn't seem to like the idea of someone else looking at their books.
6. Distributor's Gross - WGA wants internet proceeds to be metered by what the distributor makes, not what the producer reports to the guild. (This is really another shell game by the AMPTP, where they can basically hide much of their profits. We'll have to see if the DGA similarly tries to deal with this.)
There is a front page article in today's LA Times Calendar section (Mon Dec 31, 2007) regarding daytime soap opera writers going financial core and returning to work under the radar. I had wondered who was writing the soap scripts these days and had thought it was the producers or scab hires. But apparently there are more and more soap writers going back to work. And there are others who are saying they will follow suit if the strike goes as long as it currently appears.
Post a Comment