|
AMPTP Sends Update on the WGA Strike
By Ryan Parsons | Image property of respective holders.
WGA at a Glance
Though I can understand what the 'writers' want in the WGA strike, dragging this baby out is not only going to hurt the studios or whoever else the union is mad at. With the number of films diminishing for 2009, every film/entertainment publication including us blogs should take a hit in about a year. With less to talk about usually means less readers, so how about we get this thing all wrapped up.
Though it looked like some progress was being made, AMPTP has sent over an announcement with not only a fact sheet, but news that negotiations have broken down once again.
Statement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
We’re disappointed to report that talks between the AMPTP and WGA have broken down yet again. Quite frankly, we’re puzzled and disheartened by an ongoing WGA negotiating strategy that seems designed to delay or derail talks rather than facilitate an end to this strike. Union negotiators in our industry have successfully concluded 306 major agreements with the AMPTP since its inception in 1982. The WGA organizers sitting across the table from us have never concluded even one industry accord.
We believe our New Economic Partnership proposal, which would increase the average working writer’s salary to more than $230,000 a year, makes it possible to find common ground. And we have proved over the last five months that we want writers to participate in producers' revenues, including in theatrical and television streaming, as well as other areas of new media. However, under no circumstances will we knowingly participate in the destruction of this business.
While the WGA’s organizers can clearly stage rallies, concerts and mock exorcisms, we have serious concerns about whether they’re capable of reaching reasonable compromises that are in the best interests of our entire industry. It is now absolutely clear that the WGA’s organizers are determined to advance their own political ideologies and personal agendas at the expense of working writers and every other working person who depends on our industry for their livelihoods.
Instead of negotiating, the WGA organizers have made unreasonable demands that are roadblocks to real progress:
-- They demand full control over reality television and animation. In other words, they want us to make membership in their union mandatory to work in this industry – even though thousands of people in reality and animation have already chosen not to join the WGA.
-- They demand restrictions designed to prevent networks from airing any reality programs unless they are produced under terms in keeping with the WGA agreement. This would apply even to producers who are not associated with the Guild. Their proposal artificially limits competition and most likely would not withstand legal challenge.
-- The WGA organizers are demanding the right to ignore their bargained “no strike” provision, allowing them to join in strikes of other labor organizations.
-- Their proposal for Internet compensation could actually cost producers more than they receive in revenues, thereby dooming the Internet media business before it ever gets started.
-- They insist that writers receive a piece of advertising revenue – even though the producers that pay them don’t receive any of this revenue in the first place.
-- They want a third party to set an artificial value on transactions, rather that allowing the market to determine the worth of each transaction. This would result in producers having to pay residuals on money that the producers never even received.
These are the terms the WGA organizers demand for ending the strike – money that doesn’t exist, restrictions that are legally dubious, and control over people who have refused to join their union.
Besides betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of the economics of new media, such as a streaming proposal that would require us to give them more money than we make ourselves, the WGA organizers are on an ideological mission far removed from the interests of their members.
Their Quixotic pursuit of radical demands led them to begin this strike, and now has caused this breakdown in negotiations. We hope that the WGA will come back to this table with a rational plan that can lead us to a fair and equitable resolution to a strike that is causing so much distress for so many people in our industry and community.
WGA Strike Fact Sheet
Jurisdictional Issues
The WGA’s organizers had made clear prior to the resumption of negotiations that jurisdictional issues in the areas of reality television and animation would no longer be central issues. Despite this commitment, the WGA placed all of these jurisdictional issues back on the table. This is unacceptable because the WGA is trying to achieve through these negotiations what the WGA has failed to achieve through traditional labor organizing techniques.
Internet Compensation
The WGA proposed a system of compensation for Internet programming that, when applied to the WGA and the other guilds, could result in producers paying more to the guilds from Internet programming than the producers actually receive in revenue from such Internet programming. The WGA’s proposal could create a completely untenable business model for the rapidly changing Internet marketplace.
Access to Revenue Streams Unrelated to Producers
The WGA has proposed for the first time in the history of entertainment industry negotiations that writers receive access to overall advertising revenues. The WGA’s proposal would mean that producers would be paying residuals on advertising revenue that the producers themselves never ever receive. This unprecedented demand by the WGA is completely unreasonable.
Establishing Fair Market Value Outside the Marketplace
The WGA has proposed using third parties to determine the value of a transaction instead of the marketplace determining that transaction’s value. The WGA’s proposal would allow an arbitrator to attach a greater value to a transaction than the marketplace actually attached to it. As a result, under the WGA’s proposal, producers would have to pay residuals on money that the producers never even received in the first place.
Reality Television
The WGA wants to assert WGA jurisdiction over reality television in an underhanded and legally dubious fashion. The WGA’s proposal would prohibit broadcasters -- who are not even parties to these negotiations – from doing business with independent reality producers unless those producers have agreed to be bound to the WGA agreement. The WGA’s anti-competitive proposal would expand WGA coverage over reality TV writers who the WGA has failed to organize legitimately.
Sympathy Strikes
The WGA organizers are demanding the right to ignore their bargained “no strike” provision, allowing them to join in strikes of other labor organizations.
Ryan Parsons
Sources: Image property of respective holders.
Contact
© 2004 Minds Eye One, All Rights Reserved
The Can Magazine™ is a trademark of Minds Eye One
All movie titles, movie icons, movie stills/clips/trailers/other media... are registered trademarks and/or copyrights of stated holders
CanMag.Com banners contain movie/gaming icons that were created by individual holders
|
|
|
Add to Heffee!
