But unlike Jordan, I don't even own a television and still I care about this strike. Why? Because if the writers' win big it will be an important victory and if the writers' lose big it may have same of the galvanizing effect on Big Business that the defeat of PATCO had in the early 1980s.
So now I am writing, not to Jordan, who has told me he doesn't care, but to a few people out there who really care about issues such as creativity, control of creative works, and the labor movement. Maybe I am only preaching to the choir, but as the saying goes the choir has to keep its hopes up enough to sing brightly.
1) Everyone who cares about the Southern California labor movement should care about the outcome of this strike. The WGA has often been a pivotal union with-in Hollywood and the Hollywood unions have often been a focus for what has always been a very anti-Union climate in Southern California. I have written at length on this here and at my journal and don't need to repeat the history.
2) Everyone who cares about the union movement in this country should care about who wins this strike. The WGA is a small union up against some of the biggest corporations in the world. And yet one of their key planks is organizing the unorganized and union solidarity. Every agreement that the WGA has made so far has abolished the despicable "No Strike" cause. If the WGA wins this strike it will be the first union in a long time that will reverse a trend of not honoring the picket lines of others. For this reason alone all of us who care about the union movement should support the WGA strongly. But there are other reasons. The WGA leadership has been consistent in the last years in supporting all other unions, from maintenance workers to carpenters to auto workers in a way that few other small unions have. They have been out on the picket lines and they have gotten some of their big name friends to support the pickets of other unions. We who support the union movement should support the writers when they need support.
But I see from Jordan's post that he doesn't care much about the union movement as a whole. Maybe he just cares about some parts of the labor movement but "doesn't give a flying fuck" about others.
3) Another reason we should care about this strike is because of the high level of red baiting of the WGA leadership that has gone on. Very few leftists has spoken out against this red baiting, but inevitably it will effect us all.
4) The strike is important for all of us who create anything. The Hollywood bosses are fighting not only for themselves but also for Microsoft and Monsanto. The bosses have already lost more money than what they would have had to pay the writers' if they had settled on WGA's terms for a three year contract. So why are they so intransigent. Because the bosses of corporations know that settlement on these issues might change the standard of who owns so called "intellectual' "property." The bosses believe that the products of our minds is "their" property and that any trespass on it is some kind of socialism. What makes the issues of this strike new is that even though it is not on the face of the contract the WGA leaders have constantly raised the issue of creative control. (Thus one of their minor protests leading up to this strike has been forcing product placement on writers.)
The labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein has covered some of these issues in the garden pointing out that all so called "knowledge workers" are essentially industrial workers and we all have a stake in this strike. ** http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nelson_lichtenstein/2008/01/a_little_knowledge.html
Don't mistake the surface issues: Both the union leadership and the bosses know that this strike is about creative control. So in this sense Mike Ballard original post is correct -- there is something a bit "new" going on here.
January 3, 2008 5:00 PM
On Jan 12, 2008 5:16 PM, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> Jerry writes:
>
> > For one, those not covered by the WGA contract don't
> > get residuals....
>
> Those not covered by the WGA contract aren't striking, right? :)
Part of the strike is about organizing the unorganized. There are many people who have tried to join the WGA and have been fired in the process. Animation writers who have tried to join the WGA have been blacklisted and will continue to be so if this strike is not successful.
But let's take your comment on face value. We all know that when union go on strike and win they more often than not also benefit the unorganized. Those of us who care about what we create, should also care about the fight of the WGA because the fight for control of creative products is also our fight. If they can set some standard of control then that standard might make inroads for the rest of us.
>
>
> > In this way of putting things he unknowing[ly] puts on the glasses
> > of the corporations in order to see things.
>
> I think you're reading too much into this; I was just responding to the
> original poster's idea that something *new* is happening, which I don't
> think is true: the current contract gets residuals, just not what the
> WGA thinks they should get.
If you had read my post you would have realized that one thing at stake here is what is always at stake in Hollywood, "Who will control creative 'product'. The fight among Hollywood unions has always been about this. The current strike is limited but the WGA in its more militant modes has always been slightly more far-seeing than most other Hollywood unions on this issue
>
> > Imagine a situation where a novelist writes a book and not only does
> > the publisher profit from all subsequent publications of the book but
> > the novelist does not get paid for subsequent republishing of the
> > book, can't reuse the characters in the book himself, cannot write a
> > sequel to the book, and if the book falls out of print can't try to
> > republish the book somewhere else.
>
> You mean like how most musicians work? :-)
Which was part of my point. As I said in my original post: "The wish of the current corporate moguls is to treat today's cohort of writers in the same way that the old blues artists were treated."
>
>
> > So called "intellectual property" is a unique product.
>
> I guess you're pressing for my personal opinion, which you (incorrectly)
> think I expressed in my earlier message as "Yay! Corporations are
> great!" ... My personal position is that 99.9% of TV is crap anyway, and
> I have a TV only really to watch movies, and I don't even really watch
> that many. If the WGA thinks they can get more money out of Big Media,
> more power to 'em. I really don't give a hoot one way or the other, and
> I'm not bothered by the fact that there is a lot "less TV" during the
> strike; I'm not even particularly bothered that non-union folks are out
> of work because of it. My lack of a strong opinion one way or another
> is probably more a reflection of my own cynical approach to the value of
> intellectual property: most of it is worthless or soon will be.
Jordan what I don't understand is why do you think this strike has only to do with TV. And by the way, I think that there is good evidence that the more creative control that television writers have the better the television.... This has been true of practically all television shows --The Dick Van Dyke Show, All in the Family, The Rockford Files, and recently, the Sopranos, the Wire, and Battlestar Galactica. And also it was during the period that the writers' union and the below the line unions were most militant -- roughly 1936 to 1948, that many of the most interesting socially engaged films came out. It is an unwritten history of Hollywood, a history I wish I could write, that when the unions are most militant that is when we get the best class conscious and progressive films. So all of us who love movies should hope for a militant Hollywood union movement.
>
>
> I feel that the amount of time and effort that has been spent on this
> issue is out of proportion to it's position in my world. If I thought
> about it, I could engage you on multiple points of multiple topics in
> your long, probably well-intentioned and -considered message about all
> the Issues At Hand. But really, it's a beautiul day out and I'm going
> to go enjoy it.
But be assured Jordan, I am no longer trying to have a conversation with you as I intended in the first place. If you decide you care about these issues then I will be more than happy to engage in a discussion. But since you don't care, what I am trying to do here, and what I have tried to do every time I have engaged leftists is to try to explain why possibly they might want to show some interest in the issues of this strike and in the writers and actors who are the most militant about these issues.
>
> Maybe that makes me some kind of Corporate Tool, but really I think it
> just makes me someone who really doesn't give a flying fuck about TV.
> The WGA being on strike means as much to me as when the baseball union
> was on strike; but that doesn't mean that I'm anti-union; and I don't
> think it means I'm pro-media-consolidation.
>
> /jordan
>
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