Rolling Labor Action Thread

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/bob-iger-writers-actors-strike-disney-ceo-1235669169/

Hahaha respectfully sir, fuck you

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/2023/7/13/23793828/sag-aftra-strike-wga-hollywood

I didn't realize that Fran Drescher was such a militant firebrand

Fran Drescher's speech is worth watching:

The business model has changed for all of us - this applies to music equally #solidarity pic.twitter.com/j8sbmisCD3

— Damon K 🎤 (@dada_drummer) July 13, 2023

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-signalled-the-rot-inside-the-streaming-economy

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-signalled-the-rot-inside-the-streaming-economy🕸

H/t sleeve

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/actors-strike-sag-artificial-intelligence-hollywood-studios-background-1234788191/amp/

I meant to C&P this good Janis Ian post along with that link, here it is:

* you may share anything I post here.
A few people on this page have objected to the SAG-AFTRA strike on the grounds that "you get to do what you love" "you're overpaid already" "I can't afford to take my kids to movies because of you" and my favorite, "I can't afford tickets to sports events any more."
???
So let me explain just a couple of things.
- Statistically, 2% of actors make a living wage. Even fewer singers make that much.
- SAG-AFTRA doesn't only represent actors. It represents singers, dancers, DJs, puppeteers, stunt performers, and dozens of other professions.
- You may work in an industry that will contribute to your pension fund, provide matching funds, provide health benefits. We get none of that. The only benefits artists get are through our unions, and we pay for those.
- Years ago, the union caved to Amazon and its subsidiaries by making deals that ruined audiobook narration and a host of other things. As a personal instance, I narrated The Singer and the Song, which was nominated for an Audie (the audiobook equivalent of a Grammy nomination). It involved singing parts of more than 20 songs, creating new arrangements for them all that would suit solo vocal and guitar, researching names of places and pronunciations, and a host of other things. I spent two full weeks of my life on the project and was paid for 7 hour's work, because that's how long the audiobook plays. At that time, the rate was about $230 an hour, so for my two week's work I was paid $134 a day, or about $14 an hour for a basic nine hour day.
- Most performer's "days" are more like 12 hours.
- Most performers earn in the region of $8-$10 an hour if they're lucky.
- The studios are not "negotiating". Read the below article from Rolling Stone to see what they want from us. If you happened to be lucky enough to be a "background actor" on a show that needs warm bodies in a restaurant, or walking around the street, you'd be paid $200 for up to 16 hour's work, and have to agree to have your body scanned, after which the studio would OWN that scan and the right to use it FOREVER.
- As a last aside, please don't come on my page and tell me artists get to do what we love so we shouldn't be paid for it, because we don't really work as hard as non-artists. Until I stopped touring, 12-hour work days were routine, and I was lucky if that's all it took.
Thank you for your support, of art, and of artists.

Damn, good post. And YIKES.

also relevant along w/the Black Mirror episode everyone is referencing that I have not seen

https://bojackhorseman.fandom.com/wiki/Secretariat_(film)

After an incident with her and her daughter Penny, BoJack returned to L.A. to find the film has been finished without him. They did this by using a CGI version of BoJack, which was created from a computer scan they did of his face during the first few weeks of shooting in Brand New Couch. In fact, they actually replaced the real BoJack with the CGI version for the entire movie, meaning that BoJack technically isn't in the film at all.

https://deadline.com/2023/07/oliver-stone-oppenheimer-sag-aftra-wga-strike-roots-1235438219/

truth bomb from above link:

“I don’t think it will be wrapped up quickly. Because well, I don’t understand the economics of Netflix and these new guys, but it’s the same old bullsh*t. You know they’re making money and they always say they’re losing money. It’s the classic conflict that goes back to the 1880s in America.”

So Netflix also hides viewership figures from cast and crew, too? Creeps.

Not just Netflix. Tony Gilroy, showrunner of Andor on Disney+: https://www.indiewire.com/awards/industry/tony-gilroy-andor-emmy-nomination-wga-strike-1234883534/

Critics have raved about it, but it doesn’t necessarily have the highest viewership for Star Wars. What would you tell people who have maybe hesitated to watch it?

I’m gonna go back to the strike then. One of the central issues of this entire labor experience is that I don’t have any idea what the audience is. We don’t know what that is, and I think that the obscurity of data doesn’t help anyone. Really. I think it looks like low-hanging fruit and easy profitability for certain corporations, but in the end it just crushes any kind of free market. It crushes the economics of the business, it means people are being overpaid and underpaid and never properly paid. It means that productions are overloaded with expenses up top because what used to be commonly residuals and royalties now have to be front loaded. I think it’s distorted and warped and is close to ruining this amazing industry. So I wish I knew how many people watched, I wish I knew who they were, and I’m not sure that that’s possible.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/hollywoods-cruel-strategy/674730/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/os-angeles-shooting-days-plummet-writers-strike-1235539756/amp/

Lotta shooting not happening

Everything has been said on the thread already, I’m really hoping both writers and performers get what they deserve.

If you aren’t working in the industry and want to support, please consider using less Netflix/Disney + type streaming for the coming weeks or months, there are great alternatives for top content that aren’t benifiting these ghouls!

Great piece on Starbucks and their owner’s stonewalling and general evil vibe.

Yeah that’s a fantastic piece and close to home for me. A Starbucks near my workplace is also unionized so I’ve patronized them feeling a bit self-righteous for doing so (worker solidarity!) but knowing that no unionized Starbucks has a contract makes me feel like shit now. I’ve wanted to talk to the baristas about their union experience but haven’t thinking they’d be wary of talking to a customer about their experiences.

Starbucks can’t be blamed for Ms. Cruz Borrazas’ health crisis. Plenty of Starbucks workers are organizing under tremendous pressure without winding up in the hospital.

The fuck Starbucks can't. The woman who wasn't eating enough and spiraling in anxiety and depression because of Starbucks' actions wound up in the hospital.

I assume that was some kind of CYA from the Times legal department but fuck that shit.

Pretty great:

https://teamster.org/2023/07/weve-changed-the-game-teamsters-win-historic-ups-contract/

DANG.

Quite a coup for O'Brien, who hasn't been president all that long

Sets him up well for his big quest: unionizing Amazon.

The contrast between 1997 and 2023 in terms of pre-strike mobilization and preparation couldn’t have been more stark. Many major locals — Chicago local 705 in particular — were kept in the dark, and had no idea if there’d even be a strike until it was called. And while it wasn’t a Hoffa, Jr. -affiliated local, it was still very top-down, with the rank and file asking questions and not getting answers. A nearby Hoffa local, 710 in Rockford, actually scabbed on the ‘97 strike (and one of my favorite memories of that summer is when my friends and I chased scab-driven UPS trucks around the quiet and tony North Shore suburbs, honking, shouting at them, and hilariously scaring the shit out of them).

O’Brien is the first non-Hoffa president since Carey was ousted by the government in 1998 (on what turned out to be completely false charges), and obviously isn’t interested in getting cozy with UPS like Hoffa Jr was. That said, I’m cautiously optimistic about the new contract, and am curious what Teamsters for a Democratic Union’s position on it is.

Per your first paragraph there's some particular detail about the past vs. now in this solid piece

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-07-25-teamsters-historic-contract-ups/

Damn. Glad to hear that about UPS.

Thanks for that, Ned. Great background on their strategies.

O’Brien didn’t face similar opposition today from hostile local officers. “We’ve taken different factions and coalitions, come together, under one vision, one voice,” he said when asked about the role TDU has played in the contract campaign. “I think it’s been effective, and it should be a template for the power of collaboration to effectuate change.”

UPS came dangerously close to putting itself on strike

vg wording

Rather!

Good new piece here on the SAG/WGA front

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/the-system-is-quicksand-sag-and-wga-union-members-tell-all

Also, Wil Wheaton's IG post here is pretty sharp.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CvFzWyCPiN8/?hl=en

Great post and he and spacemom are cuet.

Good piece on the UPS tentative agreement here:

https://www.tempestmag.org/2023/07/what-happened-to-the-big-ups-strike/

What would a historic victory have looked like? Well, among other demands, it would be ending two-tier wage structures between part-timers and full-timers, and installing air conditioning for all delivery vehicles now. The current TA, despite threats from O’Brien and Zuckerman to “pulverize” UPS, has the feel of being underwhelming. But, underwhelming in an era of growing threats to the livelihood and health of UPS Teamsters are actually major concessions.

Given the historic moment of low unemployment, record profits, and public sympathy for UPS workers, it feels like a moment has been missed for real historic victories.

And I’m seeing on social media some locals organizing for a “no” vote.

https://deadline.com/2023/08/writers-strike-meeting-union-studios-no-new-talks-1235455349/amp/

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/steven-soderbergh-interview-command-z-christopher-nolan-hollywood-strike-streaming-1234799431/amp/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna98755

From nbc dot com

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-08-10/wga-to-meet-with-amptp-friday-as-writers-strike-stretches-on

Skip ahead to about the 20 minute point

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tvs-top-5-podcast-chris-keyser-writers-strike-100-days-1235561162/amp/

UPS contract approved:

https://teamster.org/2023/08/teamsters-ratify-historic-ups-contract/

Meantime word out of Duke that their grad workers have organized, pretty cool:

Live from our watch party, we are thrilled to join a historic wave of organizing #UnionsForAll in higher ed, and so excited for Duke grad workers. Today, we’ve formed the first recognized grad student union at a private university in the South, and 1 of the largest unions in NC! pic.twitter.com/ADWxqq9iPr

— Duke Grad Union (@dukegradunion) August 22, 2023

Bandcamp United begins contract negotiations tomorrow!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwTSiOsyPmx/

👍🏽

“People close to the studios who were not authorized to speak publicly also acknowledged the decision to make deal points public was designed to circumvent WGA leadership to spur writer-producers and legions of workers who are struggling financially to begin to apply pressure to WGA’s leadership to accept a deal.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-08-23/writers-strike-studios-wga-talks-amptp-actors-strike

UAW membership votes 97% for strike authorization in mid-September if needed

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/25/uaw-strike-vote-to-authorize.html

“A former senior studio executive called me from his car. “Everyone is feeling down on all sides,” he said. “It really does feel like the business is in a lot of upheaval. People are talking about how linear television is declining faster than anybody thought, which means that the twenty-two-episode scripted network show is becoming a rarer and rarer thing. And the six-to-eight-to-ten-episode series on a streamer—the economics of that turns out to be much harder for everybody. If you look at all the legacy studios, it seems like their profit margins are going down. And, obviously, talent—writers and directors and actors—are feeling like they’re getting squeezed.”

He went on, “So the mood is tough for everybody. There’s a lot of mistrust and animosity between the studios and the guilds. In the past, there has been more empathy across the aisles. Right now, it just feels like everybody’s sort of frustrated with everybody, almost like everybody’s fighting for a bigger piece of a shrinking pie.””

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/scenes-from-hollywoods-hot-labor-summer

lol the pie isn't shrinking dog

"it seems like their profit margins are going down"

*citation needed

Today, @AmericanAir Flight Attendants returned a 99.47% ‘yes’ vote to authorize a #strike. Our 26,000+ Members have sent a clear message: we are ready to strike. #1u #SolidaritySummer pic.twitter.com/JwEnHcFzne

— Association of Professional Flight Attendants (@APFAunity) August 30, 2023

salute