Talks resume in Hollywood; economy wobbles, local hopes briefly spike

US Features

By Mark London Williams Nov 26, 2007, 23:19 GMT

This is being written after the Thanksgiving break, as people file back in to town, shake off the last of the tryptophan hangovers, and prepare to get back to, well… I was going to say "work," but suddenly there's a lot less of that around. 11/20/2007 - Masiela Lusha - Writers Guild of America (WGA) March on Hollywood Boulevard - Day 16 of Strike - Hollywood Boulevard between Ivar and Highland - Hollywood, CA USA © Chris Hatcher / PR Photos

11/20/2007 - Masiela Lusha - Writers Guild of America (WGA) March on Hollywood Boulevard - Day 16 of Strike - Hollywood Boulevard between Ivar and Highland - Hollywood, CA USA © Chris Hatcher / PR PhotosAnd there'll be even less if the Strike – we can use the upper case "S" now, at least locally – goes on into the new year.But it might not. Nikke Finke, with her usual judiciously placed above-the-line leaks, reports on her "Deadline Hollywood" blog that WGA sources are telling her a backroom deal has, essentially, already been hammered out, and that with the official resumption of talks between the WGA and AMPTP, that capital "S" labor dispute may be settled by Christmas.Which is pretty good news, coming in what was supposed to be a news blackout, so let's hope it pans out.One thing that seems to be different this time 'round, compared to the strike of '88, is the that everyone affected by the strike is talking to each other, and we don't just mean over coffee; i.e., the landscape of blogs and websites – which make Deadline Hollywood's "nexus" like status possible, for example – ratchets up the timeline for how the dispute unfolds, and even how fast the blowback begins.This is, in part, because the social pressure to end the strike, grows ever faster – which means that with talks resuming, the enmity for both sides, if those talks in fact collapse, will be enormous.That pressure is fueled by panic – a sense that the economy, in macro terms, is shaky. This very morning, for example, comes the report of 6,000 people in Cleveland applying for 300 available Wal-Mart jobs, Citicorp announcing layoffs of up to 45,000, and one of the main columnists for the Financial Times, Wolfgang Munchau, declaring the dollar is on its "last lap as the only anchor currency" in the world.Ominously, he notes: "The financial flows back into the US appear to have come to a sudden stop this summer. The US Treasury International Capital System (TIC) data show a massive drop in net foreign purchases of US long-term securities since the end of June."
In other words, the rest of the world is ceasing to trust the U.S. buck as a very viable currency. What will that portend?Locally, Claudia Eller ran a piece in the LA Times Business section, the same morning talks resumed, headlined " Writers strike takes toll on production workers."In it, she quotes, among other sources, Donald Lee Harris, a production designer on "Grey's Anatomy," who says, among other things "'I understand (writers) want a piece of the pie, but do you have to ruin the whole pie to get it?"'Unfortunately, we're being sacrificed along with them but we're not going to get anything for it.'" And then Eller adds, "if the strike goes on for months, said Harris, who lives with his wife and their two teenagers in Sherman Oaks, he would be plenty worried. 'Then I'm eating up all my savings and will have to go to my home equity line to support my family.'"But guess what! Those home equity prices are falling – and will keep falling in '08. And anyway, getting the loans against that equity will only become harder in the present climate.Eller's article also quotes Jon Furie, who oversees the below-the-line Montana Artists Agency, who recounts working at Nordstrom's selling shoes, during the '88 strike.But if you're competing with thousands of other people for those jobs – displaced Citicorp workers, say – that won't be much of an option, either.Everyone knows the entire economy is hanging by a thread. Everyone is terrified an overlong strike will cut that thread –regionally speaking – in ways that can scarcely be imagined.So the pressure is on, for this round of talks to succeed, to an even greater degree than it was on the year's worth of posturing that lead up to the walk-out in the first place.

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KittyNov 26th, 2007 - 23:46:57

As a TV writer, I wish I had a home equity line of credit to draw from. I'm tired of hearing that only the below-the-line people are going to suffer here. I had to walk away from my only work of the year, have about three months worth of savings with which to pay my rent, and am completely screwed after that. So, please, let's not pretend that all writers are just going to go hang out in their second homes and play with their money. This is hurting a lot of us... but we all, including crew members, CHOSE to get into this less than secure industry in the first place.

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You are not irreplaceable.Nov 28th, 2007 - 21:51:05

Hey Kitty, cry me a river.

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SP4: I understand...Dec 2nd, 2007 - 00:15:30

...you joined a union to get better treatment from your bosses, but the fact is, your union leaders screwed up, failing to note the alternatives that the bosses have at their disposal. Typical, the uinions are worse representative of your value than yourselves. You'd do better to can the unions.

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IA 600.Dec 21st, 2007 - 02:35:32

My union is screwed up enough but note that when we were threatening action on run-away production and asking for decent working hours after the death of a camera assistant (Brent Hershman)we had no support from the writers.

Perhaps if you worried about writing better scripts instead of getting every penny for them the rest would take care of itself.

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Talks resume in Hollywood; economy wobbles, local hopes briefly spike

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