Strike may resolve soon!

[icerose]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22968561

I hope so, and I hope the deal is decent. Certainly better than what they originally tried to push on us.

[Plot Device]

It's sad to read that the Guild has backed down on the animation/reality TV issue. So much deplorable abuse against writers goes on in those two markets.

[icerose]

One step at a time. The animation group do have the animators guild at least. (Sorry I forgot the name of it.)

[Plot Device]

One step at a time. The animation group do have the animators guild at least. (Sorry I forgot the name of it.)


I don't recall the name either, but I've heard from WGA people that the current union that "protects" the animators is really a bogus union that's totally in the back pocket of the studios.

(Okay, I went and got a link just now.)

Do NOT bother clicking this link unless you have time for a REALLY long read. But it's one of my blog entries from early November about the strike.

http://sandwichboardroom.blogspot.com/2007/11/wga-strike-warning-profanity.html

Here's the part that's applicable to this thread. The following is an excerpt from a member's only message board for the WGA. On that message board an argument erupted between those writers opposed to the strike and those in favor. And THIS one post became the "star" post that got circulated all over the internet. And it names the union as the IATSE as the "cartoonists union" and calls it a fake unon. I am only giving you a small chunk of that huge huge long tirade by that angry writer. It's an amazing post by him. BE WARNED! THIS QUOTE IS FULL OF PROFANITY!!!

I came to this guild having had a “successful” career writing Animation for $1400/week for five years. During that time, I wrote on several of Nickelodeon’s highest-rated shows. My writing partner wrote and directed 1/4 of the episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants” and I was responsible for 1/5 of the episodes of “The Angry Beavers.” The current value that those shows have generated for Viacom? $12 Billion dollars. My writing partner topped out at $2100/week. In the year 2001, tired of not receiving residuals for my endlessly- repeating work (even though the actors and composers for my episodes do), I joined with 28 other writers and we signed our WGA cards.

So, Nickelodeon quickly filed suit against our petition for an election, and set about trying to ferret out who the “ringleaders” were. In the meantime, they canceled the show that I had created 4 episodes into an order of 26. Then they fired the 3 writers who’d been working on my show. Then they fired 20 more of my fellow writers and shut down three more shows, kicking almost their entire primetime lineup for 2002 to the curb, and laying off 250 artists.

Then, once the WGA’s petition for election was tied up in court over our illegal firings, Nickelodeon called in the IATSE Local 839 “Cartoonists Guild” — a racket union which exists only the screw the WGA and its own members — and they signed a deal which forever locks the WGA out of Nickelodeon, even though we were there first. Neato!

Then Nickelodeon’s brass decided —out of thin fucking air— that myself and two other writers had been “the ringleaders” of this organizing effort, so they called around to Warner Bros. Animation, the Cartoon Network, Disney Animation, and Fox Kids, effectively blacklisting the three of us out of animation permanently.

And why did Nickelodeon do this? Why were they so eager to decimate their own 2002 schedule, fire 24 writers, break multiple federal labor laws, sign a union deal, and to even bring back the fucking blacklist? They did all of that to prevent us from getting the same whopping $5 residual that the actors & composers of our shows get.

For five lousy fucking bucks, they destroyed three people’s careers and put 250 artists out of work and fucked up their own channel for a year.


There is much much more to his angry scathing post, but you get the picture. Not a pretty picture at all for the animators.

[icerose]

Wow, that sounds downright painful.

[jessegrillofilm]

wow. I would be so stoked to be making $2100 a week. Whats the yearly on that? What kind of hours? 40 or 50 a week? I am cast driver and work 90 hours a week and make about $1200 to $1600. Wish I was a writer :(

[Plot Device]

wow. I would be so stoked to be making $2100 a week. Whats the yearly on that? What kind of hours? 40 or 50 a week? I am cast driver and work 90 hours a week and make about $1200 to $1600. Wish I was a writer :(


How about $55 million a year? Or better yet, how about $65 million?

Here's the REST of that quote:

For five lousy fucking bucks, they destroyed three people’s careers and put 250 artists out of work and fucked up their own channel for a year.

Ahh, but my episodes run about 400 times a year worldwide, though, so obviously Sumner Redstone (Salary in 2001: $65 million dollars) and Tom Freston (2001 salary: $55 million) were right to do what they did… myself and those other 23 writers might have broken the bank, what with each of us going to cost them another TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS each! OH NO! That… that’s… FORTY EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS!

A YEAR!

So don’t come crying to those of us who have EXPERIENCED what the AMPTP plans for all of the rest of you, that people who are deciding to stand up to bully-boy tactics like that are the crazy bunch of “horads” lustily marching “throught” the streets searching for blood. The AMPTP are the barbarians sacking Rome in this scenario.

The AMPTP and their glittering-eyed weasel lawyers are a bunch of lying, blacklisting, law-breaking scumbags, and the fact that they haven’t budged off of ANY of their proposals in the last three months proves that what they have in store for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU is exactly what they did to us at Nickelodeon, and what they can do any day of the week in daytime animation. Or reality.

Strike or no strike. That’s their plan: to winnow down your membership, to snip away at your MBA, to chew away at your health & pension plans until there’s just nothing left of the WGA. Why? Because they’ve had a good strong drink of how much money they make off of animation when they don’t have to cut the creators in for any of the cash, and now they want to extend that free ride to all of live action as well. THAT is why they have pushed for this strike at every step, with their insulting press releases, with their refusals to negotiate, etc. — because they’re HOPING we go on strike, and that enough cowards and Quislings come crawling out of the woodwork after six weeks that they can force us to accept the same deal that Reality TV show writers have.

If you doubt me, go read their contract proposals again… there’s not ONE of them which isn’t an insult and a deal-breaking non-starter.

So can we PLEASE stop hearing about how it’s the current WGA management which is the fucking problem here? Because, frankly, that canard is getting a little stale.

Or perhaps you prefer presidents like the President of the Guild back in 2001 who just threw up her hands when we were fired and blacklisted out of our careers and said, and I quote, “oh well, it was a good try”?''

A screwing is a screwing is a screwing. The WGGB have indicated their full support for the WGA strike and while that means fuck all in real terms for the vast majority of us, at least I hope our American brothers know they have it.

For those of us it does affect, I refer you to the words of pastor Martin Niemoller. ''When they came for me there was no one left to defend me."

[nmstevens]

wow. I would be so stoked to be making $2100 a week. Whats the yearly on that? What kind of hours? 40 or 50 a week? I am cast driver and work 90 hours a week and make about $1200 to $1600. Wish I was a writer :(


To make the issue clearer (and I'm not trying to knock you or anything) -- if they fired you and hired somebody else to do the same work for the same hours for $300 dollars a week, you'd feel mighty unhappy -- especially if they said you could have your old job back -- at the same rate.

But why? Maybe the guy who's earning the 300 thinks it's a reasonable deal. Why wouldn't you?

Because your work has value and there should be some direct relationship between the value of your work and what you are paid for your work.

Large employers, either working individually or collectively as unofficial trusts, are able to devalue the legitimate worth of labor by monopolizing the available supply of work. If you want to be a cast driver (for instance) or an animation writer, or a screenwriter, there are only so many places you can go to get that work. If all of the employers collectively agree to underpay you, or to deny you certain benefits, as an individual selling your services, you have no choice but to accept that devaluation of your work -- because where ever you go to sell it, you will find that same under-valuing being used.

The antidote to that industry wide de-valuation -- is organized labor. Just as large industries are able to control, and thus deny to workers the supply of jobs, organized labor can do the same thing - control the availability of skilled labor to industry.

So just as industry can say to the work force -- you want a job, you have to take what we give on our terms, Organized Labor is in the position to counter that by saying -- you want a work force, you have to come to us, and give us decent wages and decent benefits, or else you don't get people to work in your factories, or drive your cars, or write your scripts.

That is why unions who have a collusive relationship with management, as certain unions are rumored to have, is so destructive of the basic relationship between unions and management.

The reason that we have the wages that we do is because of organized labor -- that I have a pension, that I have a health plan, that we have residuals and royalties and minimum payments on our work -- and that there is some reasonable value paid to the writers and directors of a show, who may make thousands, while the studio owners may, quite literally, make hundreds of *millions* off that very same show -- is because of the efforts of my union -- not because management is "fair."

If management had it's way, they'd never have paid us a dime in pension or health benefits (as they don't in animation or reality TV). Never given us a penny in royalties or residuals (as they don't in animation or reality).

That is, with the exception of those shows, like The Simpsons, that are covered by the WGA.

NMS