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WGA Strike Primer: Alec Baldwin Swings and Misses
It is not my pleasure to be the Designated Responder. I would rather stick marbles in my nose or eat beets.
However, when people repeatedly are factually incorrect or speak repeatedly from zero knowledge, it demands a response. Especially when it concerns my livelihood, and those of my colleagues. For the most part, my colleagues don't have a platform to respond. I do. I get their angry emails, so it's my responsibility to step up. Sorry. But that's the way life works.
Yet, still, I was willing to leave Alec Baldwin to his whims when he wrote in a blog, "the Writer's Guild needs to replace their negotiators." And reiterated, "Get rid of Verrone." (That's Patric Verrone, president of the WGA.)
Fine, he was having a bad day. It's the holidays and people get flummoxed. Whatever. Though not even a complaint about the AMPTP negotiators? Odd. But...whatever.
But then he repeated it in a second blog.
"The current WGA negotiators," he intoned, "do not represent the best hope the WGA has right now and should be replaced."
Whether Mr. Baldwin is playing the dupe, buying into the AMPTP corporations' character assassinations of Patric Verrone and David Young, the Guild's chief negotiator, is not for me to say. Perhaps he is simply misguided. But he clearly doesn't have a clue how the negotiations are handled.
Here's how it actually works:
The Writers Guild has a distinguished negotiating committee, made up of TV showrunners, Emmy winners and Oscar winners. The AMPTP corporations can't attack these people as irresponsible...because they're the very people they hire to run their TV series and write their huge movies. So, they attack the two leaders. It's basic. And obvious. And pathetic.
It's this negotiating committee which sets the agenda. Debating amongst themselves what the pattern of demands should be, and how the negotiations should be handled. Their directive is then given to Young and Verrone. Mr. Baldwin seems to posture that they're winging it. Alas, this is not improv theater. It doesn't work that way.
In fact, Patric Verrone and David Young have the significant support of WGA membership. This support comes from the thousands of writers daily pounding the sidewalks, discussing among themselves at length the issues, questioning Guild board members on the lines. Mr. Verrone, actually, knows well what he is doing. He happens to have graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and has a law degree from Boston College, where he served on the Law Review. He's very smart. Smarter than most of the CEOs of the AMPTP likely. Perhaps smarter even than Mr. Baldwin.
David Young knows what he's doing, too. This may be his first labor negotiation, but he's long-credentialed in the labor movement. It's why he was hired.
But the main reason Mr. Baldwin is so bizarrely wrong is because the impasse in negotiations has absolutely nothing to do with Writers Guild leadership. Zero. It's because the AMPTP corporations do not want to negotiate - they're testing Guild resolve and they walked away from the table.
Twice, in fact.
The "six demands" the AMPTP insists on before they'll deign to return are smoke-and-mirrors. Those aren't strike issues. If the Guild caves in to demands of what can merely be discussed, as Mr. Baldwin seemingly wants, it loses. Period. Game over. And you don't replace your leadership because the other side doesn't like them. Mr. Baldwin's unthinking positions guarantee the end of the Writers Guild.
To Alec Baldwin, director Gil Cates is All That Is Holy in negotiating. He writes, "the directors, who have typically fielded the most effective negotiators of the three guilds will step in and, once again, school everyone." In fact, it was Gil Cates in the mid-1980s who lead the directors negotiation that infamously removed 80% of residuals for home video. This became the problematic pattern by which unions now get paltry cents. Some ace negotiating. Some schooling. It is the WGA over the decades which has struck and gotten the conditions that became the pattern for all guilds. Give Mr. Baldwin an F.
Alec Baldwin postulates that "in our business" one should only strike knowing how to end it. (As if that's not how it's done in other businesses...) The Writers Guild leadership knows how to end it. It made proposals so reasonable that a Pepperdine University poll shows the public favoring writers 63%-4%. Either Mr. Baldwin is in the 4%, or he's just tap dancing. The eminent Wall Street firm Bear Stearns released a report last week that noted, "From Wall Street's perspective, we estimate the impact of accepting the [writers'] proposal is largely negligible." (Just guessing, but Bear Stearns probably knows more about this than Alec Baldwin, too.) The Writers Guild leadership can end the strike - if the AMPTP corporations return to the bargaining table.
Here's the problem: if Mr. Baldwin had just one, single, specific example of what WGA leadership has done which caused the impasse, he should have expressed it. Instead, he's offered nothing. Instead, he leaves us with a song-and-dance.
There's an old joke about "I'm not a doctor, but I do play one on TV." I know that Alec Baldwin plays a GE executive on TV - but he doesn't have to act like one in real life.
Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.
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All this back and forth over the DGA competence and Alec's boy Gil Cates is historically inaccurate and misses the main point. The terrible giveaway that Mr. Cates negotiated for the DGA back in 1987 was tied to the writers' upcoming negotiation in '88. To simplify, the agreement would be changed to give the directors any additional benefits that the writers might win. End of strike.
Is it any wonder that the full wrath of the industry came down on the WGA the following spring? With the other guilds contracts tied to whatever gains the writers make, the writers are forced to negotiate for all three guilds. (yes, SAG followed suit) However, SAG did not take a public position against the WGA as the DGA did back in '88.
So they waited us out. And targeted guild quislings. And created bitter divisions. And they won.
If the whole angry lot of us want to be more forward thinking, we should be coordinating with the DGA in their upcoming (early) negotiations and make sure that they don't sell us out by settling for a substandard contract with the proviso that they automatically get bumped up to reflect any additional benefits the WGA might win.
The corporations who own and run our livelihood know the value of fighting for the long term. We are in the right. But we better be prepared for a long and bitter and well coordinated fight, if we are going to retain (and possibly win) any small benefits.
Just an observation from an outsider:
In this article, the writer says the the AMPTP does not want to negotiate. The truth, as I see it, is that the AMPTP does not want to negotiate with the WGA. For whatever reason, the AMPTP does not seem to like the WGA. The WGA does not seem to have cultivated a productive, amiable relationship with the AMPTP. The onus is on the WGA to do this because they are the employees. This is business 101. Alot of business is about relationships. People deal with people the like and they do not deal with people they do not like. It seems to be possible to develop this type of relationship with the AMPTP because the DGA seems to have done it. The AMPTP seems eager to deal with the DGA. Being likable in business dealings gets you alot further than not being likable. Just ask the actors. They know that when they go on the talk-shows to promote their movies and/or T.V. shows that they have to be likable or we, the public, will not go see their movie or watch their T.V. show. And we know it's phoney but we don't care. We like going to see and supporting people who we like. We do not go see and do not support people we do not like. Take a lesson from that, writers. Do everything you can to make you bosses like you. The rest of us regular folk do it everyday. It's how we survive.
The WGA President has a degree from Harvard. Like George W. Bush, who even has an advanced one. So stay the course behind the uniter?
I'm sort of stunned that the main point of this strike is overlooked. Everyone seems worried about who's pitching and who's catching and forgetting that this is 100% about corporate greed. Period.
The studios that run the AMPTP want to no longer pay residuals. Period. They want to pay minimum and exploit work anyway they want without those pesky writers, actors, directors, etc., getting anything on how they choose to reuse the work. Again, greed.
You may not like all the players on your team but this is the only game in town and to not support them when the other side is ready to rub your nose in their crap is stunning.
There's always missteps in a negotiation like this - on both sides - this isn't a science. And in the case of show business, the egos are even more ridiculously outsized and the personalties more eccentric and often pathetically nasty.
But if anyone can tell me why this strike caused by corporations greed isn't a fight for the future of the business, I'm listening.
Keep your eye on the ball, worry about the end game and stop worrying about the other players on the field.
If you sit around and negotiate long enough, you'll be able to show the opposition EXACTLY how to divide your union. Right down the middle.
Go on attack.
If the Dodgers hire a rookie hitter and find he can't turn on a fastball, he's sent back to the minors. Thoughts?
Bravo. Good post.
Robert,
We seem to continually run into the comprehension-challenged and now, here we are, on another blog, with the same problem. We're going to get you and petegrif a room together.
Nowhere, that I can find, has Mr. Baldwin suggested capitulation. Since when did voicing concerns about competence become character assassination? Also, where did he suggest that WGA consider the "six demand" side salad?
You say the cause of the impasse is that AMPTP has twice left the table. Seems to me that, as well-papered and experienced as Messrs. Verrone and Young appear to be (Mr. Verrone, anyway), they would have some insight into how to get AMPTP BACK to the table. In fact, its their JOB. For christ's sake. That's elementary. If they can't back-channel, then its time to bring out the negotiative Louisville Sluggers and if they don't know how to do that, YOU NEED A NEW TEAM. BTW, the fact that this is Mr. Young's first forray IS alarming. Again, in some ways it's less a case of what was done than what WASN'T done.
Into Mr. Baldwin's sentence about knowing how to end the strike, you read entire treatise supposedly espoused by Mr. Baldwin, such as whether or not the public favors the writers or whether their proposal is reasonable or what the bottom line impact would be. NEVER MENTIONED.
Gil Cates? Your really had to reach waaay down in the bag to pull that one out. He hasn't been president of DGA since.. what? 1987?
Looking back on this piece, you really had to work hard to fit the words into Mr. Baldwin's mouth and make yourself look like a hero. Your cheap shots, btw, pretty much give me the book on you.
I'll give you "one, single, specific example of what WGA leadership has done which caused the impasse": they went on strike. Sheesh, that wasn't too hard.
Sorry, but I'm in the Guild and I'm with Alec Baldwin on this one.
But I'm happy for Patric Verrone that he has an Ivy League degree; it's something he shares with President Bush, along with a propensity to rush into things without a plan.
"David Young knows what he's doing, too. This may be his first labor negotiation, but he's long-credentialed in the labor movement. It's why he was hired."
he may be long-credentialed in the labor union, but it's "his first labor negotiation." if my livelihood was on the line, i think i'd really like someone who's done this before. even once.
and the missteps are numerous...allowing the wgae to go out when good faith negotiations were taking place and progress was being made (and the amptp was at their most divided)...the "six demands," which they knew were non-starter issues...declaring they would negotiate individual deals (long after the amptp had become completely unified).
is mr. balwin completely wrong? these don't look like calculated moves made to help end a strike, but to prolong it as long as possible.
Robert,
Are we living in two separate cities? Everywhere I go writers are complaining about the WGA leadership. Not only have I been talking to showrunners, I've also spoken to people working in the WGA's strike offices. I've also spoken to people in the industry who not only have the smarts but also an overview which clearly the WGA leadership lacks. As for your comments about David Young being hired because of his experience in the labor movement. That's the problem. His agenda is whatever works best for the labor movement. His priority is not this industry, not this town, not this community. You keep asking for examples of the WGA's blunders. Here are three. Creating the wrong atmosphere for a negotiation with the venom they spewed. Bringing animation and the reality show issues into the discussions. Not hiring a smart, rational industry insider to represent the Guild. I do think it's interesting that in your post you're now trying to downplay Verrone and Young's control and describing the decision-making process as a collaborative effort. You know what that tells me? It tells me that even you know Verrone is no leader. As for comments by Mrs. Wakely, all I can say is WAKE UP.
Among the many things Mr. Elisberg is wrong about, Patric Verrone's law degree is from Boston College not Harvard.
RJE: I stand corrected, thank you. Patric Verrone graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor's degree. He was on the Law Review at Boston College. I've corrected the text. There are indeed many things I'm wrong about. Happily, with this correction, none of those any longer remain in this piece.
You are about to get SUCH a phone message.
There are those (like Mr Baldwin) who call the WGA negotiating team incompetent. I don't agree but let me make it real easy for you to prove me wrong.
If you believe that a deal could and should have been worked out already that clearly implies you have a deal in mind - at least the broad outlines of such a deal. If you don't have some idea what the deal could be you can't know if people were incompetent because you can't know if there was a deal that could have been reached.
(You might be pissed because a deal hasn't been reached, that is only human, but that understandable frustration can't be fairly leveled at the negotiators.)
So for those who keep slamming the WGA team, here's your big chance - just let us all know what the fair deal is that has eluded the WGA team! Once you explain it to us I guess the strike is good as over. We can all say - gee those negotiators are indeed a bunch of losers, fancy not realizing the deal was there all the time just waiting for us to make it, let's fire these punks and put some right guys in place to make the deal.
The onus really is on you to sketch out what we are all missing. But if you can't it is pretty clear you are either throwing a hissy fit or trolling.
So like I said - here's your big chance to prove that the negotiators are indeed losers. Spell it out for us! What is the deal that you have in mind that is informing all this criticism of the WGA team?
brilliant
absolutely spot on
factually accurate as anyone directly involved knows perfectly well
about time we got a clear statement of reality
thank you
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Posted December 27, 2007 | 11:14 AM (EST)