Comments on: DGA-AMPTP Negotiation Talk

By: Scott Kraft

Scott Kraft — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:07:28 +0000

I am a WGA writer and I also work a lot in animation, which has no “real” union – or at least no “real” minimums – and as a result I, and other animation writers often negotiate our own contractual terms – and guess what? I do better when I have a strong union. And guess what else? Studios continually break the terms of the contracts they negotiate and there is next to nothing an individual can do. At least a union can do a little. Although the truth is they can’t do that much either. Studios often take 4 to 6 months to pay. Some (not all, many are very fair, to be fair) coerce more rewrites than contracted. They try to terminate deals early for clearly BS reasons just to get out of paying after an actor has said “no” or a genre is no longer “hot.” Litigation, while an option, is prohibitively expensive in most situations. And one might ask oneself, if unions are so awful, how is it that 8 moguls whoare supposed to be competing come to negotiate as an entity? Does that not strike anyone as odd – if not collusion? Hmmmmm?

By: TLR

TLR — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:47:07 +0000

It’s a shame that unions aren’t willing to understand that we live in a different age and the union model is no longer valid to promote workers or commerce. I wonder if in this day and age, individuals might be better off negotiating their own contractual terms and taking the union intermediaries out of the equation. But of course, hollywood is one of the many places that will require a nuclear holocaust for workers to reject the paradigm.

By: Kev

Kev — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:50:12 +0000

I think what they all fail to realize is that TV and film are no longer the only entertainment games in town and while they’re all squabbling, they’re going to be losing market share that won’t be easy to reclaim.