A Modest Proposal For Ending The Strike
1) WGA Calls Off The Strike.
That’s it.
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Don't jump to any conclusions yet -- I know this is going to be controversial, but read on. There would be conditions, of course, to the Strike ending, and they are conditions which unilaterally support the Writers.
Think of it not as “ending the war,” but rather as a “cease-fire.”
Here’s the plan:
The WGA should submit a proposal to the AMPTP (or to the Mediator as the Producer’s Proxy) which addresses the Studio’s latest counter-proposal. The WGA was, by it’s own account, in the middle of preparing such a proposal when the Studios walked out. In theory, the Writers’ latest draft is (or should be) complete and ready to submit to the other side.
The WGA should address the Studio’s 6 Conditions For Re-Instating Talks, but they should not unilaterally withdraw the issues.
The WGA should, in turning over their latest proposal, request that the AMPTP immediately return to the bargaining table to discuss and negotiate the terms of the latest proposal.
Here’s the kicker:
As inducement to restarting talks, the WGA should offer to immediately order all Writers to return to work, and conditionally call off the Strike (while withholding the right to resume a Strike at any time) as soon as the AMPTP returns to the negotiating table.
WGA should hold that as long as the AMPTP was bargaining in good faith, the Writers would remain back at work. If the AMPTP failed to keep up a newfound spirit of true negotiation, then back to the picket lines the writers would go. The WGA would agree to input from the Mediator, but the WGA alone would decide if and when they would to go back to the picket lines.
And here’s the super value-added bonus: WGA should add that the AMPTP could not send senior personnel to negotiate with any other Guild (ie, DGA) while the Writers are working under their expired contract. In other words, Counter and the Big Wigs stay at the WGA table, but the Writers don’t completely subvert a sister Guild’s preliminary talks.
Here’s what the WGA would gain:
- Negotiations resume
- First Position status with the AMPTP negotiating team
- Writers are back to work
- Below The Line is back to work
- Hollywood is back to work
- Leverage at the table -- Labor Relations 101 teaches us that the threat of a strike is far more leverage for labor than is the strike itself
- Actions to back up their words. If the Studios don’t return to the table, as a condition for ending the strike, then they truly become the party responsible for the strike continuing (which has long been a WGA party line that to date has been only half-true). The WGA would have put up the ultimate Good Faith and the Studios would have truly squandered it. This is all moot, though, since they absolutely would come back to the table with this enticement.
- A contract. Let’s face the simple truth -- the Guild would be months closer to an agreement by conditionally calling off the strike than they would by staying the course.
Here’s what the WGA could lose:
- Ego. The fear that the strike didn’t work, only the reversal of the strike did the trick.
- Stockpiling of scripts. But how much could really be written before you decided that they weren’t negotiating fairly? If they get one week out of writing by faking good faith, did they get more than one episode per series? Maybe they got some touch-ups on features that are going to shoot anyway (and bear a writer’s name on them somewhere).
Here are rebuttals to the obvious arguments against the plan:
- Wouldn’t this be caving to them? Not at all. It’s the ultimate incentive to return to the table, and it gives back the leverage which was lost when the Guild went on strike. Remember: the threat of a strike is more leverage than the strike itself.
- Wouldn’t this set a dangerous precedent? Potentially, but only in the hands of weaker leadership. This would never work if it were the AMPTP demanding a strike cease-fire before they return to the table -- they tried that at the onset of the strike, and the Guild appropriately held firm. But because this would be the WGA initiating the cease-fire, the precedent is the Guild’s to set, and merely becomes another labor weapon in this and future negotiations.
The plan isn’t detailed enough to be perfect -- you’ve got lawyers, use them. But this idea would work significantly better than pouting to the public, whining to the courts, and walking in circles in front of studios that don’t care.
The Guild wouldn’t have to worry about waivers to late night, or producers that are also writers. The Guild would have to worry about one thing -- making a deal that works.
Most importantly, the Guild has in its power to get everyone back to work AND get the contract it deserves in a manner that is more swift than it’s current course.
Many people (myself included) now believe that staying the course will result in one of two scenarios (both of which are pretty pessimistic):
1) The DGA will conclude a deal by the end of January. WGA will end up taking a very similar deal by the end of February. The deal will have been something the WGA could have gotten anyway, without ever striking (it’s based on the DGA deal, after all, and pattern bargaining ensured a similar deal even without a strike).
2) The DGA will conclude a deal by the end of January. WGA will hate the deal, and continue to take a hard-lined stance against it. The Strike will take us to the SAG contract expiration. SAG, too, will walk. The Strike will take us through August or so, and the WGA and SAG will sign deals suspiciously close to what was on the table back in February, as large factions of both Guilds threaten to go Financial Core. This deal, again, would have been achievable either 1) without striking (see above), or 2) by delaying the Strike until the SAG contract expired.
Now is an opportunity for the WGA to once again control its own destiny, gain tremendous goodwill for the negotiation, and put all of Hollywood back to work.
The window of opportunity is shrinking, however. This play has maximum leverage only before the DGA has begun formal talks.
Once you get past the radical notion that this would not be a bad move by the Guild, I think you might quickly realize it’s a great move. A powerful move. A game-changer.
Stop letting the AMPTP call the shots. Think different.
