Diamond on TV-Theatrical: “It’s Not For Me to Say”
It’s a surprising conclusion after an interesting analysis by one of the better observers of Guild politics. Steven Diamond is bluntly critical of all sides in the SAG wars, but punts on the critical issue of vote yes or vote no on TV-Theatrical. Even without a recommendation on voting, it’s still worth a click.
How many people do you think were actually waiting on Steve Diamond’s advice on how to vote?
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Ed. Response – Probably few, given that his post came the late in the campaign. But his analysis over the years has been first rate.
But Diamond does point to several things we have all been stating here….the contract problems began because MF/AR/DA started negotiations way too late…with no clear strategy…wanted a atrike…[while all under the total control of Membership First]. Diamond also states, “If the membership votes No, then they are back to square one – no contract, no strategy”. There is no stratege if the contract fails.
What we need to do…first, Vote YES, … and then create more balance in our National Board. That can be accomplished by voting out MF, or by some miracle — finding a way where MF can work with the other board members together. We’re divided house. Imagine if all the energy, time and money used for the political infighting were used jointly toward mutual goals…but then, I’m an actor and have a very active imagination.
MF needs to stop pointing its flying finger of blame at UFS, USAN, RBD, AFTRA…and find a way to combine our strengths to benefit the Guild and its membership. But that would be like asking the US to join Iran to build a better terrorist trap.
I’m taking the first step – I voted YES.
I agree with many of the individual points in his analysis, but his overall message is incoherent.
The best I can conclude after reading it is that he would say that SAG would have been best off to take the deal that AFTRA took (and that the WGA and the DGA took), given the realities of SAG’s situation in the spring of 2008. Yet he is unwilling to say this, apparently believing that in more capable hands SAG could have achieved more, despite the precedents set by DGA and WGA. Perhaps he believes that in more capable hands SAG might have managed to create some coordination with these other guilds, which would have been a historic first. He doesn’t specifically address this point, but my belief is that the most significant difference would have been keeping Phase I intact, allowing for joint negotiations with AFTRA and likely a joint deal. These negotiations could have occurred in late 2007 (comparable to what happened when the 2005 contract was negotiated in late 2004), and perhaps that could have influenced the outcome on the WGA side. But the 2004 negotiations took place under Melissa Gilbert and Bob Pisano, and SAG members, in their infinite wisdom, forced them out.
I’m not prepared to go along with his contention that SAG is in the position of “sacrificing potentially tens of millions in force majeure penalty payments triggered by the WGA strike.” My understanding is that these payments were by no means a sure thing, and that claims of this kind were essentially unprecedented. Both sides had an excellent reason to compromise.
And he completely (and I believe somewhat disingenuously) disregards the roughly $85 million in earnings that SAG members have already sacrificed by working under the old rates in the 2005 contract. And that doesn’t even take into account the additional tens of millions they have sacrificed because of the near-total shutdown of feature film production by the majors, nor the sacrifice of future revenues from pilots that have gone to AFTRA. Getting the new contract in place will at least stanch some of the bleeding.
He is correct, in any case, that the legacy of Allen, McCord, and Jolliffe will take a lot of time and effort to overcome.
VG
And he would have been happier if he had been selected as the interim exec over David White.
Realize that this is a thoughtful guy, and it is my opinion that we would have hired him had not Jolliffe/McCord and the other backroom MF players had not surreptitiously offed him. Notice that I did not include Rosenberg in the crew? He was a front man, start to finish.
Interesting point about the WGA strike “draining all the strike energy out of the room”. I think there is a good bit of truth to that –and then the financial crisis sucked out half of what was left.
The challenge for the moderates in this next election cycle will be to show they do have the cojones for a strike in 2011. That they aren’t wusses/Quislings –they’re just picking their ground like any good General would do, and then preparing that battlefield (AFTRA detente/unification) in advance.
geo — already yearning for a strike in 2011? Oh boy….
No, already yearning for a moderate slate of officers that can be elected and hold more than 53% majority.
geo, there is a precedent of sorts for what you’re saying about the moderates proving they aren’t afraid of a strike. In Isaac Asimov’s novel I, Robot, the final story deals with a Presidential candidate so perfect that some people spread nasty rumors that he’s really an android. At a campaign rally, a heckler shouts the accusation to the candidate’s face, and the candidate wades into the crowd and punches the heckler in the nose. Well, that proves it: if he were an android, the (revised) First Law of Robotics (“No Robot may harm, or, through inaction, allow to come to harm, any Human”) would have prevented his positronic brain from allowing him to punch a human.
But what if, a journalist asks a famous robotics expert the next day, the heckler was HIMSELF a robot? The Professor smiles and says, “An interesting question – but does it matter?”
Oooh, Asimov quotes will always make me swoon, Stuart.
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) more or less kept the global peace for 60 years, but it has to be credible on both sides to work. . .
The “Moderates” – and I’m one – aren’t going to be preparing vor a strike. They’ll preparing for negotitions, with a strategy and a plan. One item in the arsenal is a strike.
Here’s the main difference between MF, and the rest of the board.
For MF – a stike is the goal.
For the rest – a strike is a tool in obtaining the goal, a contract.
Which would you rather have on your board?
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WW Response – I think that may be a bit unfair to MF (hard as that may be to believe.) I don’t think their goal is a strike. They simply don’t have a clue as to how to negotiate a contract without one. They keep repeating that fiction that the only way actors ever get anything is a strike.
That’s crap. That’s stupid. But you’ll never convince them of that.
Y’know, the more I think about this, the more I become convinced the core of the disagreement between factions (the core –not the tactics, which have been nearly uniformly horrific on all levels by MF in recent months) is whether a “bad start” can ever by redeemed later. For MF the answer, based on their reading of the history of DVD, is a resounding “NO!”. I’ve come to believe their “plan” is that even if they can’t have a strike they’d rather have no contract than get off to an unacceptable (in the long term) start with this contract. They still get to “negotiate with the other guilds” in 2011 if no contract is signed in the interim.
This is not an intellectually indefenisble position. The financial losses in this three year cycle pale compare to the losses over the next 25 (or more) years if they are right. I know that’s not a comfort for those with the tyranny of a mortgage payment to make in the interim.
What it rests on, however, is the idea that *no one else* in the labor end of the industry learned anything from the DVD experience. Not U4S, not WGA majority, not WGA minority, not *any* of the creative guilds. You can say the sunset provisions aren’t really binding on AMPTP, and that’s true, but they are psychologically binding on the guilds, and their members are not likely to let that promise go unfulfilled.
WW: it’s like a slugger who thinks the only way to win a game is to hit a grand slam – so he swings for the fences every time, instead of taking the opportunities for solid singles and extra-base hits (or, God forbid, a run-scoring sacrifice).
Stuart, it’s especially hard to achieve a slam when there’s no one on base.
why isn’t the sunset clause binding? What part of the clause can be fudged? And by the way, at one point during this mess, AMJ did say the goal was a strike. They wanted that from the beginning
It’s no more binding than the expiration date of any contract reopens the discussion of all terms going forward. Yet the hated DVD clause never changed over how many subsequent contracts, did it? At least it isn’t binding on AMPTP to agree to change it. They are entirely free to attempt to insist on the same language next time as a continuation of the status quo.
Are they on notice from the beginning that won’t be acceptable? Sure. And so far as I know, there is general agreement that everyone on both sides of the table knew the original DVD deal was “temporary” too, at the time. I’m not saying the sunset clause has no value at all, but I think the value is actually the promise from guild leadership to its members rather than any impact on AMPTP’s position on the matter. Where it is still problematic is there is no way to remove the original deal from the context when the discussions start next time. Any discussion will still get framed as relative improvement from that baseline. “7/14″ residual-free streaming still becomes “50% better! –how can they reject a 50% improvement?!”
What the sunset clause does that an informal committment to revisit a subject does not is that it effectively prevents the side making the promise from exacting anything in return for revisiting the subject. In other words, the AMPTP cannot exact a quid pro quo without risking the NLRB from ruling that they are bargaining in bad faith. No employer or union wants to be found to be negotiating in bad faith. The penalties are far too severe, and for outfits that have to negotiate with multiple unions, the risks are only amplified.
During my term at AFTRA H&R, I discovered a technical error in the language of one of the CBA’s. It was clearly unintentional and undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that old language had been carried forward when some other provisions had been amended in subsequent negotiations. As the AFTRA employers thrived on ambiguities in the contract, I suggested to union officials that a correction be made in the next negotiation.
“Can’t do it,” I was told, “They’ll want something in return for fixing the problem.”
“Even if it is a mutual problem?”
“Especially if it is a mutual problem.”
The old, ambiguous, self-contradictory language is still in the latest version of that Code. The risk it represent is still there. If that provision had been covered by a Sunset Clause, it would have been on the table and fixed without the need to exchange anything else for the correction.
Thanks to the Sunset Clause, the AMPTP doesn’t have the luxury of that position in regard to new media terms. They cannot ask for concessions elsewhere to renegotiate those terms. They have committed to revisiting the subject, and revisiting it from Page 1, Line 1. If they don’t, the NLRB can tell them they have to.
Of course, the Sunset Clause will only be effective if the AMPTP abides by it, or if they are forced to abide by it. It doesn’t mean they are going to act like angels at the table the next time around. It means, however, they can be forced to live up to the promises they made in this contract to start over.
Thanks for the insight, Fred.
Pat – quite so.