Normally I avoid politics...

[angelophile]

...but since the writers strike was brought up on Least I Could Do's forums about sympathy waning for both sides in the argument, I'm wading in a little. As the point is raised there, the strike has now reached the stage where the knock on is affecting others within the industry and, while I'm sympathetic towards the writers, I also can't help but think about the production crews, film crews and so on who are also being affected by the strike.

I guess I'm not too hot on expressing myself on political issues. I have a number of friends in the industry so I can certainly see their perspective. I also have to nod towards Hollywood producer Don Murphy's (hi Don!) recent comment on his forums:

"Understand that the entire fight is over peanuts- table scraps.
I mean I want to work and make movies and am working on several indie ones.
But if you look at what will make the WGA happy it is almost nothing. More than reasonable.
SOMEBODY big somewhere wants to extend this out."

I guess it's a question of who blinks first. Perhaps for my sins, I've always wanted to love the unions and sometimes do, but I guess my view of union politics echoes that of the late, great Kenneth Williams, seen here in conversation with late Poets Laureate, Sir John Betjeman, Dame Maggie Smith and the not late and grating Michael Parkinson: He puts it far more eloquently than I could. And with about 10 times more camp.

Comments

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

The satisfaction of a job well done is a powerful thing, but it doesn't pay the rent or feed oneself, really. Unions (in the US anyway) do or have done a fair bit of other civic work and activism, though they are composed by definition of working people who don't always have a lot of free time for causes du jour.

I'm pretty pro-union in general, obviously. Corporations work relentlessly for their own interests, and this is applauded, but somehow the workers working for their own is unacceptable.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

I guess the point I agree with is that I'm all for unions working to make workers lives a little better through financial rewards, but when you get to the point where one group of people is jeopardising the livelihoods of another group or groups, I start to lose sympathy. I'd agree that corporations work for their own interests but corporations are usually bigger, tougher and willing to hold out. Some guy affected indirectly by a strike doesn't have that luxury.

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

Neither does the guy striking though, really. The corps rely on people blaming the unions for inconvenience to halt them from getting a fair shake. They've worked really hard to paint that picture.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Agreed, but by striking the writers, in this case, stand a chance of improving their lot for themselves if/when compromise is reached. In the meantime, a, say, dolly grip who's out of work because production has halted on all filming is both out of pocket and there's no chance of his own lot being improved.

It's apparently different in the US if unions have done a fair amount of civic work. I'm too young to remember the 70s where strikes caused Britain as a whole to declare a state of national emergency and the 3 day working week, but I'm aware that the damage caused to the economy as a whole and the wellfare of the entire country was affected, bringing about the discontent with the unions and when Maggie went to war with them in the 80s, there was less sympathy for them.

And recent strikes from the postal service, fire fighters and other unions have usually been about one thing - pay. When you have people demanding 20% pay increases and striking if they don't get them, the power of the unions in this country has been negated by what a lot of people see as unreasonable demands and self-serving greed.

I also know the unions do an awful lot of good work for their own members by they also give themslves a lot of bad press with strikes. I believe the writers are entitled to what they're asking for. As Don points out, it's peanuts. But In my mind I'd hope there was a way for them to get what they want without screwing over a whole bunch of other people indirectly in the process.

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

There are times when US unions have done dumb or greedy stuff too. They're human. They just get all kinds of bad press when they say, accidentally affect the livelihood of someone else while working for their own--but when say, like, EA fires 3000 workers because their profits were lower than their stock forecasts--people praise them for pre-emptively cutting costs. Nobody expresses much concern for the damage they have done to those livelihoods in the process. Economies are interconnected things and you can't jiggle one part without jarring another, but blaming workers for trying to get their own is giving the studios a free pass for being total assholes for pretty much their entire existence.

Part of the reason the studios are trying to hurt the dolly grips is to create that sentiment exactly.

Business management cadres have such an adversarial relationship with unions simply because management never compromises and has to be dragged kicking and screaming at every step--so you reach the point where you get a union culture that will start striking much more quickly since it is the only thing that actually works.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Things are certainly a little different here. I suppose it's part of the American dream that success is applauded so, as in the example you quote, if EA improves their profit margins by firing people it's accepted or even lauded. It's different here. Big companies and, on the whole, success is viewed with suspicion and when companies do make job cuts the effect on the local economy and the workers is talked about and concern is expressed at very high levels (up to, recently, royals supporting workers facing redundancies). Businesses certainly don't get let off lightly.