Posts tagged Writer’s Guild
Could AI be used to replace striking workers?
November 19, 2024 // Some of the striking workers handle software and data analysis. It wasn’t clear if, without them, the paper’s website would be able to handle what was an expected influx of election-related traffic. Aravind Srinivas, CEO of AI company Perplexity, responded on X to Sulzberger’s statements, saying that his company was “on standby to help ensure your essential coverage is available to all through the election.” The tech workers’ strike ended after a week (though without a contract resolution), and there were no reported website outages. But the offer from Srinivas struck many as a way to undercut the union’s power and compromise workers’ ability to fight for better labor conditions. Replies to his comment called him a “scab” (a term for someone who crosses a picket line and replaces striking workers).
IATSE & Teamsters Leaders Rally Members Of Crew Unions Before AMPTP Talks Begin; “If We Don’t Get What We Want, We Will Shut It Down”
March 5, 2024 // This year’s bargaining cycle marks the first time since 1988 that IATSE, Teamsters and the Hollywood Basic Crafts will jointly bargain health and pension benefits for their members under the shared Motion Picture Pension and Health Plan. IATSE will continue negotiations of their IATSE Hollywood Basic Agreement and the IATSE Area Standard Agreement contracts and local union specific issues. Teamsters and Hollywood Basic Crafts are expected to bargain with the AMPTP in early June for their local specific issues.
A Big Year for Labor, But Not for Reality TV Workers
January 1, 2024 // Non-fiction field and story producers have cheered gains made by the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA in their deals with studios, but also have noticed that they’re one of the only departments unprotected by a union even on unionized sets.
As Obscure as an Extra, She Has a Lead Role in Hollywood’s Labor Fight
August 30, 2023 // Wanted or not, the spotlight has found her. Many union members blame her for the negotiating logjam that has brought almost all movie and television production in Hollywood to a halt. Partly because of her woman-of-mystery persona and partly because she’s an easy target, Ms. Lombardini has become an avatar for the grievances of tens of thousands of striking workers. “Carol can go kick rocks,” Caroline Renard, a striking writer, said this month on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. With her public personality absent, actors and writers have invented one. In May, someone started a parody account on X that has portrayed Ms. Lombardini as a crass tyrant declaring, “I’m a goddess of chaos!” (Yes, she has seen it, an associate said. No, she is not amused.) Another group of screenwriters have mocked Ms. Lombardini online as a fuddy-duddy who hangs out at chain restaurants, the taunt being that no Hollywood person would be caught dead in one. (Her office is near a Cheesecake Factory in suburban Los Angeles.)
LA Strikes Embody Widespread Anxiety Over Worker Pay, Rise of AI
July 31, 2023 // The city has almost accidentally become a microcosm for worker unrest. Actors and writers—on strike simultaneously for the first time since 1960—have paralyzed Hollywood. Cleaners and cooks are sporadically picketing outside hotels, including the Beverly Hilton, the longtime venue of the Golden Globe Awards. Thousands of UPS drivers could strike next week if the Teamsters rank and file don’t quickly approve a tentative agreement announced Tuesday, following in the footsteps of port workers who walked off the job last month. Los Angeles Unified School District teachers also went on strike this year, winning a 30% pay increase after more than 400,000 students were out of class for three days. And in May, performers at a North Hollywood bar formed the first strippers’ union in the US in nearly three decades. Companies say they’re being unfairly blamed for the rising cost of living while they try to find common ground with unions—a dominant source of worker angst that has also resulted in California having the highest rate of homelessness in the nation.
Biden pushes a strong role for unions in tech jobs, even as potential strikes are on the horizon
July 20, 2023 // Biden spent part of this week focused on efforts to expand unionization into new industries. On Monday, he met with younger workers trying to unionize at Starbucks, minor league baseball, bus-maker Blue Bird and Sega. Labor Department data shows that workers younger than age 35 are much less likely to belong to a union than their older peers, meaning that the future of the union movement might depend on bringing in younger generations. Unions also aided Biden’s election victory over President Donald Trump in 2020. Just 16% of voters in 2020 lived in a union household. But 56% of people in union households backed Biden for president against Trump, a Republican, according to AP VoteCast. Union votes generally matter more in Northern states with an industrial legacy such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, key states for a Democrat seeking to win the electoral college. But there are few union votes in sunbelt states such as Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, where Biden hopes to compete in 2024 and where many of the investments in new computer chip and battery plants are being made.
Writers’ strike week 3: Stars rally at 30 Rock, WGA says strike will cost studios more money than settling
May 24, 2023 // The Writers Guild strike passed the three-week mark on Tuesday, as a large rally dubbed #RallyAtTheRock took place outside NBCUniversal headquarters and featured stars like Mark Ruffalo, Busy Phillips, John Leguizamo and Kal Penn. Even more celebrities, including SNL cast member Sarah Sherman and comedian Jordan Klepper, filled the picket lines and were joined by the Teamsters union, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, Broadway performers and many more.
Writers Guild Calls a Strike Authorization Vote
April 4, 2023 // “The studios need to respond to the crisis writers face. WGA members must demonstrate our willingness to fight for the contract writers need and deserve by supporting a strike authorization vote,” the Writers Guild of America West explained in a statement shared to social media on Monday. In keeping with the guild’s messaging in this round of talks that the stakes are existential for writers, the union further alleged that “the survival of our profession is at stake” because “over the past decade, the companies embraced business practices that slashed our compensation and undermined our working conditions.”
The Standoff Between Workers and Their Bosses Is Set To Heat Up in 2023
December 15, 2022 // Now, the strong labor market that emboldened workers is softening. The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7% in November—it had gone as low as 3.5%—–and high-profile tech and media companies have recently cut their payrolls through steep layoffs. But that doesn’t mean workers are losing the upper hand, says Thomas Kochan, a professor of employment research at the MIT Sloan School for Management. If anything, the current economic conditions mean labor strife may accelerate next year. “I expect what we’ll see is more conflict, more strikes, and more contract rejections,” Kochan says. Workers are still focused on companies’ profits during boom years, he notes, while companies are starting to trim costs to prepare for an economic downturn. “It’s that difference in expectations,” he says, “that creates a higher probability of conflicts and strikes.”