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An Open Letter to Governor Schwarzenegger on the Writers' Strike
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:
I am writing to you on the fourth day of a strike by The Writers Guild of America, of which I am a member. I am also, as you know, the creator and one of the executive producers of the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters, a show you commended for its contributions to the economy of California during a memorable set visit some months back. I am reaching out to you to ask that you step into this very ugly minefield and do everything in your power to bring the two parties together. Before it becomes a quagmire. Without a quick resolution that nominally satisfies both parties, production will shut down, which is already starting to happen. The actors, the crews and the staff on TV shows are even now laid off. (I am especially agonized by the effect of this strike on the crews, who keep the entire business functioning and who work much harder than anyone else, period -- which I am sure you know, given the fact that you're an old hand.) And beyond the crews, the ill effects will seep into an entire economy at the mercy of this faulty, ugly, and unproductive negotiation.
It is my sad conclusion that there is a faction within AMPTP that wishes to break the guild or at the very least, gore it, and wait this out, so as to cynically write off an entire season of unprofitable programming decisions and lay the way for future gains. In other words; to let the strike go on for months. The deeply insupportable position they have taken in adopting a blanket refusal to address the economics of new media with us is laughable. Even as they insist to their stockholders that this revenue stream is the hope and reality of their future. To insist on two entirely contradictory positions is either morally bankrupt, or simply profoundly amateurish. (But it happens all the time.) Michael Eisner has admitted as much just today, saying that the studios brought in on themselves. (While also calling it a "stupid" strike, so who knows what he really thinks.) At very least, it is a position that will result in a truncated audience, as it erodes their waning attention spans. Attention spans the studios and networks rely on, and live in mortal fear of losing. As a means of negotiating, stonewalling on the income from internet and future media with the very creators of the content, seems, in the seventh year of this century, steeped in Dickensian hubris, a-historic, and finally, unsustainable.
And I cannot see you of all people, presiding over a California in which the motion picture and TV industry mutilates and devours itself. It is very clear here on the ground that the studios betting on writers caving or splintering is a grave miscalculation. Possibly studio-culture has not evolved very far since the days of Jack Warner's vulgar assertion that writers are merely "schmucks with underwoods". A regrettable bellicosity has clouded an eye towards the greater good within AMPTP. I believe that personalities and testosterone have become more prevalent than clear-eyed, rigorous talk for the benefit of all. At this point, in the business of new media, it is better to win the hearts and minds of the creators of it's content, because the landscape is shifting, and creators will be owners. But that is in the future.
As for the now and here -- as the economy of the country falters, as the dollar continues to lose value, as the sub-prime lending crisis deepens, and homes and savings are lost, the effects of this strike on California will be cataclysmic.
You will be called in to intercede again and again.
Thus far, you have declined for reasons that I can well imagine.
With all respect, I suggest that it is a philosophical luxury of governance which will not be sustainable for very long. As this strike worsens, and as more wounds are inflicted, the more all parties will be damaged. For the governor to simply observe, the more it would resemble the unthinkable notion of your doing nothing as fires rage through dry Californian canyons. That should not be part of your legacy. Sometimes government is able to actually demonstrate that it works on behalf of the citizenry, and not just for powerful corporations. This would be a very good moment for an object lesson in that. As I write to you today, there are no negotiations. Simply bruised silence. My relationships with executives have been good, marked by mutual respect and consideration. I believe that the industry is made up of people who feel similarly and have equally decent relationships. At the moment, however, that civility, respect and recognition of what binds us seems to be nowhere at hand. That is why I am respectfully asking for you reconsider your position, and to do what you can to bring both parties together in resolution. We all want to get back to work. At least, on the writers side.
Sincerely, and with respect,
Jon Robin (Robbie) Baitz
Creator, Executive Producer
Brothers & Sisters
Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.
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Read a blog by rainlillie--he/she blames the writer's strike on a plot by Bush. While I hold Bush to be a certifiable twit--this assertion is madness at best and a case of unthinking hate at worst.
Rainlillie--what a reach!!!!!
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The WGA has given TV executives and TV viewers a GREAT opportunity. The best TV shows ever were made during the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Bring them back. Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, Mary Tyler Moore, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Jack Paar's Tonight, Sid Caesar, The Bob Newhart Show, Johnny Carson's Tonight, The Wild, Wild West, The Jack Benny Program, That Girl, The Avengers, Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Jackie Gleason, Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, Philco Playhouse, Playhouse 90, Armstrong Television Theater, Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, The Ed Wynn Show, The Saint, The Rifleman, Knight Rider, The Six Million Dollar Man, Mission Impossible, Superman, and on and on. Nothing created since even comes close (except Seinfeld). Make these classics the new stable for prime time TV on all networks. Bring back the best TV ever produced - and everybody wins, both young and old. After several months of seeing these classics, maybe, just maybe, the standard for acceptable TV will increase from its current toilet-level.
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No doubt in time the truth will come out that bush had his dirty hands in this mess. Most likely he didn't like the writers speaking truth to power so using the threat of force he forced the studios to not pay the writers.
What would you do if:
Another country invaded your country based on lies.
if you were unemployed and meanwhile the foreigners who are occupying your country are making billions?
if you saw your family and friends being blown to hell?
if you didn't have running water and you only had electricity for a few hours a day?
if you had to wait in line for more than six hours to get gas?
if you walked out of your home and the smell of rotten corpses filled the air?
if at night you heard gun shots and bombs going off?
if you had to stop at checkpoints and be searched by foreign occupiers?
if the leader of those occupiers said that they aren't leaving until they're ready to leave?
Does anyone care about the damage being done to IATSE crew members? I don't know what to do or where to turn for help. This strike is already ruining many hard working folks. I have lost the ability to laugh at the anecdotes about the strike as I worry about my family and earning power while this strike instantly strips my income and future prospects entirely away. I am walking around with a huge pit in my stomach of severe angst. This story needs to get out. Not to blame or shed the WGA in any bad light; I personally support the action and blame the studios (greed is part of it, but discovery of the accounting and books is probably the non-starter for the AMPTP in offering internet revenue sharing), but it is hard to be strong on principals while being utterly ruined. Can the public airing of the economic fallout on hardworking, good people somehow start a continuation of talks so that some small hope may return to crews? Where is IATSE on this? No help. No PR. Woefully absent in suggestions, or protection as its members get decimated. That is enough of a story in and of itself.
Please help get this angle out and talked about. IATSE sure isn't doing it.
Thank you!
Having Arnold intervene would be a big mistake for several reasons:
If he gets involved in this, realistically what good could he do? He's made money as both an actor and a producer? So how can he be seen as having any credibility? He'd only inflame the issue even more.
If he gets involved in this, then why not get involved in EVERY single labor dispute? Doesn't that take away from other important issues (no universal health care, illegal immigrants and more)? It would also hurt him politically as well.
Not a good move.
Has no one here seen this?
Schwarzenegger seeks to end writers strike
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071109/en_nm/screenwriters_strike_dc_7
I couldn't believe the governor allowed the spraying of an UNTESTED pestice on a town in California a few weeks ago-many people were sickened-why aren't California's environmentalists upset about this?
Keep writing Jon ... Much like the music industry has cannibalized itself, and still does if anyone here works on music videos, you see how the labels have squeezed and expect more for their pennies on the dollar. It's sad because our young directors coming up through the ranks this route are walking a thin line ... and something has to give. Typically, the directors who don't want to put out schlock don't see a dime, and their crew work for pennies on the pennies. It's become a mad eating frenzy of corporate fucks dining on the artists. (I write this last line without inferring division as I know many a sympathetic person within the corporate structure who despise the fucks of any sort, too - artists or corporate). Keep writing Jon because this challenge is bigger than the WGA ... your stand as a union is but the beginning.
Jon, I think it is admirable that you are trying. You're right. What other choice is there? I will try to put my naturally cynical nature aside. Love your show.
As a proud member of SAG and an actor on the television show Rescue Me I have been walking the picket lines with the WGA.
To many outsiders the writers of the WGA would seem a bunch of privileged white collars earning much more than nearly all their fellow countrymen. So, why should the ordinary person care about the writers battling a handful of media conglomerates?
The WGA strike is a symptom of the attack upon union power that began when former SAG president, Ronald Regan, dismissed hundreds of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. It continues in failed union struggles and defeats of labor in every industry. Our nation has undergone it's own version of structural adjustment -- when a nation, usually "third world," is forced to restructure it's economy, slashing social welfare benefits, eliminating spending in the public sphere, crushing unions, fracturing any of the solidarities that helped people like you and me get an eight hour work day, health care, worker's comp, a minimum wage, vacation days, all the things we take for granted. None of that was achieved without union struggles, and at times the sacrifice of union members' lives. So, while the WGA is striking the ideas of a union, of democracy, of America are under attack, ideas that has been devalued and maligned by successive republican regimes. The attack begun with Reagan is sure not to end with the other SAG republican leader, Schwarzenegger.
No free market ruling class wants to see a union succeed, it's antithetical to how they accumulate wealth. The writers will seek to garner support and when their contract is resolved may disband, no more sensing their connection to other workers then they did before their own bottom lines were threatened. It is my hope that if the writers sense the history in their struggle, find the courage to achieve victory, they'll validate the democratic voice, showing that every day workers have power in making their own futures. They would then be paying homage to and revitalizing the great tradition of Unionism that makes their own lives realizable.
I think one problem here is that some of the writer's have decided there is some great moral issue at stake here. Lot's of people provide creative input to a product and aren't out striking because they don't have a stake in every possible way the company they help develop products for manages to sell the product. There might be some kind of moral issue here if the writer's gave back their salaries when the programs they help create lose money. But they don't. They want somebody else to risk their money and when things work out the writers want to get a cut of the winnings. Not all that impressive a goal from a morality standpoint IMHO.
Even less impressive than that from a morality point of view is that the writer's aren't out striking for all the other people who provide creative input to a show and don't get a cut of future revenues. They want more money for themselves and don't show any signs of caring about anybody else.
So now you're in the middle of a strike which is harming many people, most of whom are compensated much less than the writer's and you want the governor, who has no real power in this situation, to come in and wave his magic wand and fix the problem you are creating. And you're not happy with the governor because he hasn't attempted to wave the magic wand that you think he has. Nice, but here's a little newsflash for you. The governor doesn't have a magic wand to solve this kind problem and sitting around trying to blame somebody else in a dispute between your union and the producers in silly.
What can consumers do to help?
Great post Alec. To hear your view on this is so interesting! How do I reach you?... Mike's 50th is approaching... Cherie Joblove lamchop315@aol.com
This is an eloquent appeal, but the greater issues you mention cut against the possibly of intervention by the Governer.
The devastating fires, the weakening dollar and the sub prime mess are not about to send him in to Terminate the WGA strike. It is up to both sides to be reasonable and part of any strike is seeing just how serious the striking side really is.
The entertainment industry is obviously a major part of the California economy, but the public sees people in that industry as pampered and overpaid. Even though the vast majority of WGA members make comparitively little money, the public perception is different and that is why gubernatorial intervention is unlikely at present.
If the writers are truly serious, they will have to stay on the strike lines until the coporate bottom line starts to bleed red ink. Giving in too soon will weaken the WGA and make any future strike less effective. Your membership will have tio suffer to get what they want.
Your strike does not elicit much public sympathy with a looming recession and all the work a day worries of every day people.
You're committed to striking and you've been out there for less than a week. The Governor is not coming through that door.
Writers? Did Arnold's films have writers? What would that script be?
FADE IN
ARNOLD KICKS ASS FOR TWO HOURS AND FLEXES MUSCLES
FADE OUT
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