THB #416: Heroism in Compromise

This is an incredibly unpleasant column to write.

I am very pro-talent union.

I believe that the AMPTP (or as Producers would now prefer, AMPTS, for Association of Motion Picture & Television Studios) has behaved terribly since before the first strike (WGA) started on May 2 and continued since SAG/Aftra went on strike on July 14.

The only logical reason for the WGA strike to go on for 146 days is that AMPTP wanted it to happen for that long or nearly that long. They basically did not ever really negotiate for 4 months and when they decided to get serious, it took less than a week to come to a settlement.

This is not to say that WGA sticking out the 4 months was not a key to getting the fair, and in some ways groundbreaking, agreement. But the ground for what they ended up with was really set up in August - when AMPTP gave WGA an ultimatum, had a hissy fit, and broke off any real negotiations for another month.

When they got back together, that ultimatum offer, which was not enough in many areas, became the starting point for a real negotiation, with AMPTP gaving in mostly on issues of degree, as did WGA.

The thing with the WGA strike was that the demands were, in great part, a response to an industry structure that had changed within the written word of the MBA, but really broke the spirit of the agreements that had been made over the previous 6 years.

So then comes SAG/Aftra, 71 days into their strike when WGA announced the settlement… not having had a single day of real negotiations over that period. Again… horrible, rancid behavior from AMPTP.

The Money has been really callous about the damage they have done and are doing to individual humans over those 146 WGA days and 89 SAG strike days since.

No doubt, AMPTP assumed that once they settled with WGA, SAG/Aftra would follow along pretty quickly, using WGA as a template. And it appears that for the most part, SAG/Aftra has done just that with many items tailored to actors’ needs.

Obviously, there are many different issues in the SAG/Aftra contract than in any WGA or DGA contract. And when I did my late night cut-n-paste of SAG/AMPTP demands and responses, there was a long list of items that were not brought up by AMPTP in their press release. I kinda hoped that some of the issues would come up with the SAG/Aftra leadership… but no… haven’t heard a peep about Guest Stars or NDAs, so I have to believe that these are not the hang-ups.

In fact, the responses in interviews by Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and Fran Drescher have made it crystal clear that there are only 2 major issues keeping the strike going. AI and money.